


An Ace Down the Rabbit Hole

by RedIce



Series: Being Asexual in a Yaoi Novel [1]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Aftercare, Age Difference, Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Anxiety, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexual Sex, Asexuality, Asthma, Attempted Murder, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bad Touch, Breaking Promises, Character Death, Collars, Corporal Punishment, Crying, Daddy Kink, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Discipline, Dissociation, Domestic Discipline, Drama, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fear of Discovery, First Kiss, Forced Infantilism, Gang Violence, Gangsters, Gaslighting, Graphic Description, Guns, Healing, Heavy Angst, Heavy Petting, Hiding Medical Issues, I Don't Even Know, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Infantilism, Interrogation, Kidnapping, Kissing, Little Space, Little Space Sex, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Medical Conditions, Medical Examination, Medical Procedures, Minor Character Death, Mistaken Identity, Murder, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Negotiating with Terrorists, Negotiations, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Spanking, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Sexual Age Play, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Submission, Objectification, Oblivious, Overstimulation, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Punishment, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Read at Your Own Risk, Russian Mafia, Sex for Favors, Spanking, Succubi & Incubi, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, This is so dark, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Torture, Touch-Starved, Uninformed Consent, Wings, sexual age play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:48:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedIce/pseuds/RedIce
Summary: He did this.For a second, Akihito can’t help but stare at the grimacing body of someone that was alive just a few minutes prior. Her bones protrude out in eerie angles. Red is slowly pooling below her shadow, the blood dark and almost reflective in the flickering, fluorescent glow of streetlights.But the most unsettling is her face, contorted in eternal bliss, murky, abyssal eyes gazing right into him.**Or, alternatively; Asexual!Incubus Akihito goes flailing through the canon-verse and irreversibly changes it. Featuring: not-so-mysterious deaths, being mistaken for an angel, and almost killing everyone you meet in 3 simple steps.
Relationships: Asami Ryuichi & Takaba Akihito, Asami Ryuichi/Takaba Akihito, Kou (Finder Series) & Takaba Akihito & Takato (Finder Series), Mikhail Arbatov/Takaba Akihito, Takaba Akihito/Liu Fei Long
Series: Being Asexual in a Yaoi Novel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828075
Comments: 89
Kudos: 198





	1. Run

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tilt-Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956799) by [foxghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxghost/pseuds/foxghost). 
  * Inspired by [Divining Infinity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706031) by [Green_Destiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green_Destiny/pseuds/Green_Destiny). 
  * Inspired by [The Sundering Kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156966) by [trilliath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilliath/pseuds/trilliath). 



> Welcome to my first foray into the Finder Series. I've been a long-time lurker and when I revisited the fandom I realized that Akihito is a textbook asexual, which also has me laughing at the fact that Yamano-sensei put an asexual as the main character of a sexy BL-series. Akihito protesting all those times but his body enjoying it? Problematic representation, but okay. Akihito not mentioning how sexually attractive Asami is, but only that Asami has attractive attributes? Akihito not ever looking at any of the many hot characters and thinking, "wow, I'll like them to bang me?" Stereotypical asexual representation right there, folks.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the ride, and stay safe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You feel better than anyone I’ve ever had.” the man slurs as he comes in for a kiss. And Akihito eats and eats and eats, gold mist shimmering at the places the two bodies connect, sexual and physical and life energy consumed so quickly and heavily until the gold disappears and the man drops, dead, connection severed. 
> 
> The man’s empty, abyssal eyes stare at him, face contorted in pleasure. The blue-eyed boy gently closes the man’s eyelids. 
> 
> “Thank you.” Akihito turns to leave, but not before taking out some powders he’s liberated from the police station and setting it next to the corpse. In the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of a man moving out of sight. 

_Run._

Akihito’s feet pound the linoleum. He swears that the beat of his heart is as loud and pulsing as taiko battle drums. 

The blond takes the steps down two at a time and sprints to the school entrance. He pulls open his locker and shoves his street shoes on, almost forgetting to slam it closed. The loud crash of metal on metal startles Akihito, for a second, shivers traveling up his spine. 

_Run_. 

Akihito rams the high school entrance open, and shoulder bumps into the doorway, sprawling him on the pavement and skinning his palms. Getting back up, the panicking boy catches sight of what he’s trying to avoid: the contorted, broken body of his high school crush. 

He did this. 

For a second, Akihito can’t help but stare at the grimacing body of someone that was alive just a few minutes prior. Her bones protrude out in eerie angles. Red is slowly pooling below her shadow, the blood dark and almost reflective in the flickering, fluorescent glow of streetlights. 

But the most unsettling is her face, contorted in eternal bliss, murky, abyssal eyes gazing right into him. 

**

**_6 Months Later_ **

“Takaba! Come back!”

Akihito laughs and shakes his head, bowling through chairs and piles of paperwork alike, shouting apologies on the way. A few senior officers mutter unflattering comments below their breaths, exasperated and used to the blond photographer’s antics by now. 

“No way in hell!” 

Akihito turns around to stick out his tongue only to catch a heavy envelope to the stomach. “Mitarai, what was that for?” The blond photographer pats his middle and groans, paleing as he witnesses the fury etched on Mitarai’s face. 

“For you to get back here and pick up your assignment! God knows why Yamazaki-sensei would want a callow, trouble-making brat like you,” Mitarai huffs, affronted at the prospect of dragging Akihito back to the Major Crimes Unit by the nape of the neck like an errant puppy. 

A flailing, noisy, errant overgrown puppy. 

“H-hey! P-put me down!” Akihito tries to elbow Mitarai but gets shaken dizzy for a few long moments in return. “Stop! I’m not getting near there!”

“What, the Major Crimes section? Pah! There’s nothing scary there… or are you a coward on top of a delinquent?” Mitarai scoffs. 

For a second, the blond 18 year old hesitates, fear flashing clear across his face. Then Mitarai blinks, and it’s as if Akihito’s stark expression was never there. Mitarai writes it off as a trick of his imagination. It’s 9 am on a Monday and he’s already wrangling brats left and right. He kissed his stress-free life goodbye the moment Akihito skipped through the doors of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department answering an ad for evidence photographers a scant 6 months ago, as a boy fresh from high school. 

In truth, Akihito is terrified of going near the Major Crimes section not for the crimes it covers, but for the large crowd of detectives, investigators, agents and officers constantly in the section as well as the full jail and suspect detaining centers housed right next door. 

The 5’2 golden-haired boy has not fed in almost 3 days, weak and lightheaded with hunger. Earlier last week, when roughhousing with Mitarai, Akihito almost planted his lips on the annoying co-worker and sucked the teasing life energy right out of him. Although Mitarai bullies Akihito, the boy would not ever want to see those lifeless, abyssal eyes of someone innocent ever gaze back into him, painful as it is to starve. And unless Akihito witnesses someone doing something irredeemable in front of his eyes, Akihito cannot in good conscience drain them dry. 

He can never take from an innocent. Not anymore. Not after that crush confession gone wrong. Not after he’s sucked that addicting first kiss deeper and deeper until he killed her and then pushed her off the high school roof for his family and friends and neighbors to find come morning. 

Akihito, still scuffed and flailing, scrunches and puffs up like an angry cat. “You call me a coward? Who was it then that _forgot_ to inform _Yamazaki-sensei_ that you wouldn’t be coming to a stake-out last night and forced him to beg poor-oof! Mnnnnngh!”

Akihito hears muffled snickers from various officers in the station as Mitarai shoves his hand over the short blond’s mouth, smothering his words into indecipherable noises. 

“Sh-shut up! You don’t know anything-”

“That’s enough, Mitarai-san.” At once, Mitarai unhands Akihito and stands up straight, as if nothing untoward ever happened. 

“Yamazaki-sensei!”

In front of them both sit a gruff, unshaven middle-aged man smoking a cigarette. He glances uninterestedly at Mitarai. “Thank you, Mitarai-san, for bringing Takaba-san here.”

Mitarai, in his one wise decision of the day, takes the statement to be the dismissal that it is and stomps out the office door.

“Apologies for Mitarai-san, Takaba-san.” 

“Haha, no worries.” Akihito stretches to shake off the kinks from Mitarai’s rough handling. “So you’re Yamazaki-sensei?”

“Quite right.” The detective intones, shuffling his documents around the oak desk. He sighs loudly, resting his forearms on the rest of his mesh swivel chair. “You see, I need a photographer to fill in a stakeout tonight. I know that you don’t usually do this kind of gig, but we really need someone.” Yamazaki shrugs in a _“what can I do?_ ” way, apologetic yet unapologetic simultaneously. 

The blond could have slapped himself. Of course, Mitarai had to be the one to land him here. 

However, troublesome as it may be, poor Yamazaki-san looks overworked and underslept, as all police officers tend to be. It can’t help to substitute in once. 

“If it’s people getting murdered and beheaded, I’m out,” Akihito declares, arms akimbo and slightly unnerved. Despite his reputation, the young man knows the difference between risk-taking and being suicidal.

Yamazaki quickly shakes his head. “No, no. It’s nothing like that.” The detective nods at the bulging envelope Mitarai threw at the photographer. “All the information is in there. Why don’t you have a look? If you’re in, call me. You have my number.” 

“I do?”

The detective takes out a cigarette from his inner suit pocket and lights it, leaning back. He has the grim expression of a man certain of how the chessgame will play out, accepting of what will happen. The old chair creaks. 

“It’s all in the envelope.”

**

Like a moth to a flame, Akihito can’t help but show up to the stakeout. The photographer knows that he’s playing a dangerous game with a different breed of people. With people who won’t hesitate to kill pesky reporters and photographers, if they get in the way. 

Akihito knows he shouldn’t. But shouldn’t doesn’t stop his blood from pumping, his senses sharpening like a predator primed for a chase. Even 5 meters away, the photographer can’t help but sense the oil-on-steel blood-in-water Yamazaki-sensei emits, tempting the incubus to just take a lick at the available prey.

But no. Akihito can’t afford to feed on people he knows, least of all his coworkers in the police department. That’s just asking for trouble.

“So, what do we do?” Akihito squats and takes out his equipment when Yamazaki stands up. “Just wait and watch?”

Yamazaki eyes the lithe blond and nods. “Yep, that’s just about it.” He takes out his cigarette and takes a long drag. “Thanks for covering.”

“Yeah, no problem.” 

Akihito’s read the envelope forwards and backward by this point. A drug bust of this size would make anyone’s career, with the added bonus of putting criminals in jail. But to give this big scoop to an amateur substitute photographer? Suspicious, to say the least. But not suspicious enough to stop Akihito from biting. 

“Man, they sure are taking their sweet time. I guess we’ll be sitting here for hours. Good thing I brought my jacket.” Akihito crows in victory when he untangles said aforementioned jacket enough to slip it on. “Where’s yours, Yamazaki-san?”

The aged detective drops his cigarette and snubs it with his toe. “Unfortunately, I don’t have one. I have to cover somewhere else tonight.” He looks Akihito in his eyes, staring straight into his soul. Yamazaki’s eyes look like those of a man resigned to his fate, but dutifully playing out his part anyway. It chills the blue-eyed photographer down to his bones.

And then, the gaze passes. Yamazaki turns his back to him and starts walking away. He lifts his hand in goodbye. “Good luck, Takaba-kun. You’ll need it.”

What the hell was that?

**

The sun rises slowly and then all at once while Akihito walks back to his cage of an apartment, tired yet satisfied. The roof of the adjacent furniture store was really a good choice to catch the deal in his viewfinder, disgruntling as it may be to climb the rusting emergency escape in the dark of the night. If only fed before the stakeout so he could see more than blobs in the dark and have even better shots at the drug deal... but this is a thought for another time.

Chilled and exhausted as he may be, Akihito can feel the pain of hunger set in and he knows he has to hunt, and hunt quickly before the shops open and more people are out and about. At these times, Akihito is glad that he’s settled in Kabukicho, the largest red-light district in the world.

A drunk puking at the curb, college students staggering home after a night out, bars closing their doors and politely shoving their patrons out. Some early commuters stuck on their screens on their way to work, a few cleaning crew personnel on their way home from a night shift, a deliveryman checking the address of the package as he’s walking.

On the one time that Akihito needs to feed, it seems like society is behaving itself. Just his luck.

Just when he resigns himself to an empty stomach and a headache, the blue-eyed man hears a muffled yelp in the alleyway ahead. Akihito, anticipation and a certain ferality coloring his expression, stalks forward to witness a clearly inebriated salaryman clumsy grope a high schooler. 

“Look, I really have to go,” The teen shakily mutters, edging around the middle-aged man to make a run for it. But before he could dash, the man grabs the younger’s wrist and hauls him back, pinning him roughly to the wall. The high schooler keens in pain, eyes shut and shoulders hunching.

“He said he has to go,” Akihito repeats, eyes unwavering from the drunk. 

The salaryman takes a second to reorient and focus on the new voice. “Who’re you?” The middle-aged man squints and leers. “Huh, you’re not too bad lookin’ yourself. Why don’tcha come here, sweetie pie. I’ll take care of you real nice, you’ll see.”

“Why don’t you release-” the photographer tilts his head at the high schooler in question. 

“-Kou-”

“-Kou-Kun, and then I’ll come closer. How’s that?” Akihito, despite 5’2, glares down at the 5’11 man. 

The salaryman grins and all but throws Kou-Kun to Akihito at the mouth of the alleyway. Smartly, the highschooler starts to hightail it out of there until he catches the blond. “Are you sure you’re alright?” What a considerate guy, this Kou-Kun. 

The blue-eyed man smiles, smoothing down his aggression and edges into something warmer and softer. 

“Yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” Akihito pushes the boy towards the street. “Now, don’t you have to be somewhere?”

Kou nods vigorously and then legs it. Once the incubus knows the boy is far enough, he slowly walks towards the molester. Day-old fish and the feel motor oil on plastic bags assault his senses. Man, why do all the bad people have to feel so nasty?

The drunk sways forward to shove a hand up Akihito’s shirt. “Your skin is so soft, like a woman’s.” The older man must think he’s being slick and seductive, but all he comes off as is predatory and disgusting. The incubus starts to hungrily swallow the sexual energy from the salaryman’s groping hand, ripping buttons off of his prey to get more contact, to drink deeper and faster and hungrier. 

“You feel better than anyone I’ve ever had.” the man slurs as he comes in for a kiss. And Akihito eats and eats and eats, gold mist shimmering at the places the two bodies connect, sexual and physical and life energy consumed so quickly and heavily until the gold disappears and the man drops, dead, connection severed. 

The man’s empty, abyssal eyes stare at him, face contorted in pleasure. The blue-eyed boy gently closes the man’s eyelids. 

“Thank you.” Akihito turns to leave, but not before taking out some powders he’s liberated from the police station and setting it next to the corpse. In the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of a man moving out of sight. 

  
  
  
  



	2. Euphoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Listen. There’s a drug. Nobody knows where it’s coming from, but we know they’re still trying to get the formula right. They’re taking people off the streets. Anyone male, middle-aged, fuck if I know why. And then they show up dead. No traces.”
> 
> “Yamazaki-san,” Akihito breathes. “What? But why-how-”
> 
> “That’s for me to figure out and you to stop asking questions about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cannon starts! Poor Akihito unknowingly wrecks chaos everywhere he goes.

“Thanks a lot, Yamazaki-san!” Laughs Akihito, full and sated from the copious ramen. Unfortunately for his wallet, the detective decided to treat the photographer for his first stakeout, even though the photos turned out blurry and unusable. 

“No problem, punk.” The older male sighs and fondles his coat pocket for his cigarettes. “Just make sure to get better pictures next time.” He tilts his head towards the new envelope. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Akihito stretches, standing up. His shoulders and spine pop. Unwittingly, Yamazaki surveys the softness of the boy’s body, the easy flexibility of youth. It would be a shame if the photographer gets caught up in any funny business besides the one he should get caught up in.

“Takaba-kun.” Yamazaki states. The blond stares back, done stretching. The detective’s face does not change, but the aura is dead serious. Even his ever-present cigarette is left smoking neglected in his hand, ash falling to the floor. “Listen. There’s a drug. Nobody knows where it’s coming from, but we know they’re still trying to get the formula right. They’re taking people off the streets. Anyone male, middle-aged, fuck if I know why. And then they show up dead. No traces.”

“Yamazaki-san,” Akihito breathes. “What? But why-how-”

“That’s for me to figure out and you to stop asking questions about. I’ve already told you more than I should.” The detective sighs. “I’m telling you this because they found some kids your age, too. So. Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

The blond half-bows. “I…thank you, Yamazaki-san.”

**

The night air bites at the boy’s exposed face, ears, and fingertips as he scouts the building, trying to blend into the crowd line waiting to enter the pulsing nightclub.

According to Yamazaki-san’s information, a bigshot arms deal should be in the back of this very building in just 2 hours. Akihito knows he’s already cutting it close. 2 hours is not enough time to find a spot and set up, especially when trying to go unnoticed in this rowdy crowd. 

The blond surreptitiously pans up, eyeing the building. A squirrel scuttles on an air duct, the clanging of nails on hollow metal reverberating all the way down to the street. Perfect.

The crowd moves, and Akihito is pushed in just as the bouncer stops the line again, making partygoers behind him groan in disappointment. The photographer ducks into the nightlife scouts into the “employees only” door, crouching a bit to remain discrete. Once the door closes, the boy sighs out in relief and the ear-damaging noise of the club abruptly muffles. 

And there. An air vent, with a grate large enough to fit a large package. Or, as one can imagine, a 5’2 photographer and his camera equipment. The blond sighs, again, and starts to pry open the grate with a mini crowbar from his camera bag. 

Why did he accept this job again? Oh, yes, of course, money. Enough money to upgrade his equipment, pay for his rent, and actually get a mattress maybe in a few months. Yipee. 

**

A solid 45 minutes of slowly and quietly as possible crawling through a metal, unbreathable tube, listening if anyone is below, and trying to map out the building while searching for the roof, Akihito swears he’s been tempted to nearly punch though the vent and drop the case at least 20 times. Do you know how hard it is to climb up floors in the vents? It’s hard, damn it!

Finally, reaching the roof’s vent grate and being able to breathe for once, Akihito prepares to break open the grate for once and for all with the sweat-slicked mini crowbar. He hears nothing but the howling wind and roof turbines and the hum of power generators. He waits a few seconds more. He hears no footsteps, although they wouldn't be that hard to mask up here. He feels that there were people recently up here, though, in some weird, sixth-sense, paranoid way. 

Sometimes, the blond wishes there has been a handbook on “How to Discover Your Sex Demon Heritage” or even just anything else other than cult testimonies and scifi and myths on shady websites. 

Arg. What he wouldn’t give for a few hints here and there. 

Making sure to be extra careful, the teen carefully unlatches the grate, corner by corner, until it clatters to the side of the vent. He jumps out and hauls his camera bag with him, only to catch sight of men in black suits coming right at him. 

He darts to the roof entry, dodging out of the way of grabbing hands. A few close grabs catch his sleeves or his torso, but Akihito twists away. When he’s almost to the door, a blond man with shadowed eyes lunges forward out of the shadows, making quick work of rendering him immobile none too gently, a hand on his wrist and another gripping the back of his head.

The photographer tries to twist out of the grip, but every time he does his arm is yanked higher behind his back. “Who the hell are you guys? Let me go!”

Akihito slams his heel down on a foot, and the blond muscle man loosens his hold enough for the smaller to wriggle out of his jacket. The shorter man hauls the roof exit door open and storms down the stairs, heart beating wildly. 

He hears feet thudding closer and closer. There’s no more time. The photographer skids, turning to the left to burst into a hallway. If he counted it right, it should be the second floor. 

He swirls right and then left again, trying to lose the tails in a whirl of gangly limbs, bulldozing through another door and into the balcony. 

Good news: vent-spelunking is good for recon. 10/10 will try again, useful if being chased by a horde of bodybuilders. Bad news: It’s the third story. 

In the split-second Akihito hesitates to jump off the balcony to escape, the shadow-eyed henchman grabs the photographer’s forearms and knees him in the ribs.

_Crack crack._

The freelancer crumples in the unforgiving hold and wheezes. He’s stunned. Time collapses on itself, until a wash of white-hot pain lances through his chest to his whole torso, leaving him chest heaving and breath stuttering bird-fast. He sees nothing but static, hears nothing but a shrill ringing.

It hurts like nothing he’s felt before. Sucking air in, Akihito automatically starts to drain the sexual energy thick in the air and all around him. He feels his ribs slowly adjust inside him, the shattered shards grating against muscle and bone alike while they try to realign. It’s barely enough to keep him conscious, and he drinks greedily, weakly nuzzling into the hands immobilizing him for more contact until he catches himself.

As his vision clears, the bond notices a businessman smoking a cigarette in front of him. In the distance, the blond hears broken high-pitched keens and sees the world tinted in gold. It’s not stopping. 

“Takaba Akihito.” The businessman drawls out, lazily waving one hand with his ID. The man’s eyes are amber-sharp and narrowed, like a predator catching sight of curious behavior in their prey. “18 years old, freelance photographer. So you’re the one snooping around.”

“What’s it to you?” The photographer wheezes out, hoping the man in front of him will come closer. His heart pounds as he sucks more and more out of the lackeys holding him. They’re not even holding him tight anymore, but Akihito still hangs between the hands, grasping at more contact, growing stronger by the minute. 

Akihito’s so hungry, even though he’s fed just this morning. And the businessman feels so good, unlike the street trash he usually eats from. He’s the air pressure drop before a storm, the stillness before the final kill, the night mountain wind howling echoes all around you so loud that you cannot hear anything else. He’s coiled strength and coolness and loneliness. A lot of loneliness.

_Come closer_ , Akihito mouths, unheard, into the air between them. _Let me taste you._

The man’s eyes widen and dilate, his foot taking half a step to close the gap before catching himself and settling, face harder than before. “Trouble like that isn’t good for business.”

He smirks, taking the cigarette out and snubbing it on the balcony floor, taking care to almost lean away from the photographer. “Now be a good boy and answer my question. Who’s your supplier?”

Akihito lifts his chin defiantly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if I did, I wouldn’t spill it to you shady yakuza!”

The blond henchman moves to knee him again, but Akihito yanks his hand out of the grip and squats, reaching for the standing leg and pulling. The henchman rolls to grapple and other yakuza yell in surprise as the photographer shoves his arm into the taller blond’s pant leg and sucks the energy right out, golden mist shimmering between the two bodies as the shorter gropes for more contact. 

The incubus’ sense tingles, and he dodges just in time to miss a chop to the neck. He twists away from nabbing hands intent to snatch him, hauling himself over the balcony railing to hop onto a sign.

The flaxen photographer catches sight of the flabbergasted collection of old men in pinstripe suits. Oh, man! What a sight. He can’t help but stick out his tongue on his way down, laughing all the way.

“Sucks to be youuu!”


	3. Cold Blooded Synesthesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world comes in high definition focus, blaring hurried footsteps and heartbeats and the smell of blood and salt and fear and the individual microfibres of his pants and the unbearable roughness of his polyester jacket. In the cage of his chest to the tips of his trembling fingers, he feels rather than hears the bite of the first phrase of the Ysayë Ballade. 
> 
> Surveying the downed former detective, Akihito positions Yamazaki’s hand with the gun below his chin. He steels himself and fires. 
> 
> Blood and bone and brain alike splatter across the concrete as the last cord of the sonata screams. The blond takes one last look at the face contorted in pleasure, and books it, just in time to miss the yakuza prowling into the scene from the other corner.

“Yamazaki-san! Didn’t expect to see you here,” Akihito pants, hands on his thighs. His ribs twinge, even after feeding from a borderline-pedophilic old geezer on his way home last night. 

The photographer is still hung up on those yakuza. Not only did he lose his favorite jacket last night, but also his expensive camera equipment and identification. It’s only a matter of time before something happens, and Akihito needs to be prepared. 

“What are you doing here?” The grizzled detective seems surprised, and morphs into grimness. 

“Haha, shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” Akihito’s sixth sense tingles uncomfortably up his spine. He watches Yamazaki’s fingers twitch towards his belt.

The detective whips out a handgun, the business end pointed straight at the blond. 

“Yamazaki-san,” the smaller manages to murmur weakly. “W-what’s happening? Why-” The photographer cuts himself off, feeling a whisper of mountain wind and low air pressure and haunting stillness creep closer and closer. The feeling slowly becomes stronger as it moves out from the frankly disgusting-feeling mix of the masses and onto the secluded pier. There’s only one person like that, and they are not supposed to be here. Why now?

He has to take care of Yamazaki-san’s gun before the yakuza guy comes. 

Akihito steps cautiously forward. “Yamazaki-san…” 

“This isn’t a game,” the older man grunts. The blond’s senses tingle, again. The detective’s finger pulls the trigger, and Akihito ducks, momentarily deafened, just in time to miss a bullet to where his heart was.

The smaller reaches up to smack the detective’s wrist, only to get stomped to the ground. 

_Pop pop pop pop._

Pain lances through him, the second time in two days. He wheezes, trying to breathe through the pain. Damn it damn it damn it he can’t afford to break more bones, especially his legs. He can’t run away now. He can’t even get off the ground.

The hunger opens it’s maws again, ravenous in Akihito’s agony. His smell and eyes and ears sharpen, honing for prey. Yamazaki-san is so close and feels like grilled squid on under-cooked rice, wet sand on pebbles, pollen so thick it obscures the air and leaves you choking. 

Prey. Right in front of him, ready for the taking. If he has to do this, he has to do this quickly. Gunshots are not inconspicuous. 

“Yamazaki-san,” The blond whisper-yells,” come closer.” Quick as a viper, the photographer strikes the detective in the balls and drags the man down by the arm. He topples and they grapple, golden starbursts forming a rising halo around them as Akihito snakes under clothes and _eats_. 

And like a captured rat, the detective’s struggles grow weaker and weaker until he stops twitching. 

The incubus licks his lips, the gold shimmers suddenly disappearing as if never there. He experimentally wriggles his legs, checking if they can move.

Perfectly healed. Not even his ribs smart anymore. He feels better than ever, cells to organ systems to body restructured to optimum performance. He is brimming with excess life energy, high on the gold ricocheting inside. 

The world comes in high definition focus, blaring hurried footsteps and heartbeats and the smell of blood and salt and fear and the individual microfibres of his pants and the unbearable roughness of his polyester jacket. In the cage of his chest to the tips of his trembling fingers, he feels rather than hears the bite of the first phrase of the Ysayë Ballade. 

Surveying the downed former detective, Akihito positions Yamazaki’s hand with the gun below his chin. He steels himself and fires. 

Blood and bone and brain alike splatter across the concrete as the last cord of the sonata screams. The blond takes one last look at the face contorted in pleasure, and books it, just in time to miss the yakuza prowling into the scene from the other corner.

**

_3 Hours Later_

The blond adjusts his tie and his hidden camera as he steps into the sorirée, balancing a tray of champagne and angling for the best camera view. Finely dressed ladies and gentlemen murmur over a gentle string quartet and clink their glasses. 

Borodin’s quartet No.2. Huh. The question is: which rich housewife is celebrating her anniversary? Or will there not be an anniversary at all, but rather a murder? Who’s to say.

Just after an elderly gentleman in a bespoke three-piece suit takes a glass with a nod of thanks, another waiter motions him to return to the kitchen. 

“Hey, Takaba-kun! Mind taking out the garbage?” The chief implores, his hands busy prepping 6 different hors d'oeuvres. The poor guy, bowing under the evils of capitalism.

Akihito drags the trash bag to the alleyway, only to get knocked to the ground by a man with a briefcase and another man chasing him. The briefcase slides below the trash bag, camouflaged in the black. 

_Ping ping._

Blood beads from the chest of the briefcase guy while the chasing guy legs it. 

“W-what?” Akihito breathes, hands on the ruddling chest. Everything zeros down to the ozone of life on the verge of death, the slowing pump of iron, the sudden and forceful influx of golden life ambrosia infusing the air around them. A siren’s call. “Are you okay?”

No response. The photographer leans in and helplessly _drinks_ , sucking deeper and more like an addict to their fix. 

“Asami...Sion” The man manages to wheeze into Akihito’s mouth. His lungs rattle once, twice, then no more. The gold dust settles and absorbs back into the back-lit blond, forming the outline of unfurling wings for blink. And then it’s gone.

**

“Thanks for coming in with such little notice, Takaba-san,” the chief detective nods, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It only emphasizes his prominent eye bags and coffee-stained teeth. 

“No problem, Ito-sama. It was such a shock to me. I don’t think anyone expected it.”

“Yeah, me and anyone else for that matter.” Ito stands up to lock the already closed door of his office. “Now that we’ve ruled out that you’re a suspect, if you’re feeling up to it, the department always needs photographers. I know it’s so soon, but we can transfer you to Aoki. You’ll be in good hands.”

_Unlike Yamazaki_ is left unsaid. 

Akihito’s sixth sense faintly rings. He perks up in curiosity, but hides it within his slouch as fidgeting. “I’ll think about it.”

The detective sighs. “Look. Don’t mention whatever I’m going to say. Completely off the record. Promise me, alright?”

“Certainly. Why?”

“I’m warning you. Don’t go snooping. Your Yamazaki-sensei apparently was up in some funny business. Got in too deep and probably betrayed his supplier, something like that. The underworld’s not forgiving.”

“W-what?” The blond doesn’t have to fake his shock. Yamazaki-san, supplying? 

“Just stay away from suspicious stuff. You’re a smart cookie. Probably already figured out that his death was not a suicide. Don’t be surprised kid, it shows all over your face. Just-” Ito heaves a deep breath in, like he’s been done with this BS since last year.. “Just don’t get caught up in the underworld. Especially Asami. They’ll kill you for less than what you know now.”

“K-kill me?” Yakuza thugs, and now this Asami?

“Stay on your toes. That’s all I wanted to say. I can’t do much for you. Officially, my hands are tied. Unofficially, I’m tired of boys like you becoming scapegoats and getting cleaned out. So duck your head and move out and get a goddamn 9-5 job waiting tables or some shit. Just get away from here.”

Ito tilts his head up and focuses on a spot just to the left of Akihito’s wide eyes. The detective’s eyes are glassy and resigned and misty. “It’s going to get messy.”

**

A forceful inhale. Akihito looks down, ready to suck the blood out of his papercut, instead witnessing the wound close up and only leave a drop of blood balancing on the pad of his index finger. Gold vapour flickers on the fingertip for a moment, only to evaporate like steam once the skin stitches together again. 

What? The blond’s casts his memory back. There was gold when the yakuza thugs surrounded him, but he’s not sure. And there was gold with that pedophile, too. Was there gold with the briefcase man as well?

Akihito’s unsettled. This… this must be part of his unnaturalness. Does it come out whenever he’s ‘eating’? But he wasn’t eating yet when the gold came out with the yakuza thugs, he’s pretty sure. And the gold came out to heal his cut just now…

The now ex-photographer plops into bed, hitting his ankle with the briefcase from earlier. He inhales in pain. 

What? Oh yeah. The briefcase guy.

Curious, Akihito inspects the case. It unlatches and opens easily, to his disappointment. No self-destruct mechanisms. No passcodes. Just a simple briefcase, with a singular CD?

The 18-year old picks it up and holds it up to the light. There’s no markings. For all he knows, the CD is blank. 

Shrugging, he boots up his computer while frying some eggs and pops the CD in just when he’s salting the breakfast-dinner. 

And opens up the document to find excel documents and videos and photos. Lots of them. Rather than named, they’re numbered. Akihito takes a closer look. No, they’re dated. Spanning from 4 years ago to one excel sheet labeled for next year.

He clicks on an excel document to see numbers, interspersed with one or two letter abbreviations. His vision swarms for a moment, unable to focus on the sheer amount of tiny squiggly numbers in each cell. Confused, he double-clicks on a video. 

It’s grainy footage from a security camera from the outside of a warehouse he recognizes from his walk back home. Only this time, it’s in the dark of the night, and there are three figures. One is waving his hands, while the other two just seem to stand. The two have their backs turned to Akihito, one smoking a cigarette, the both wearing tailored suits. 

One tailored suit guy reaches inside his jacket to pull out something and points it at the waving-hand guy. He says something and they all go inside. The footage cuts to another camera inside the warehouse. The waving-hand guy waves his hands more, and the tailored suit guy shoots the waving-hand guy in the knee. 

It gets worse from there.

There’s no sound, but Akihito can imagine pretty well what it would have been like. The two tailored suit guys straight up torture the Mr. Wavy Hands for what seems like hours. The blond’s stomach protests more than once, but he manages to swallow it back down. 

And then a tailored suit guy murmurs to the other tailored suit guy. The smoking tailored suit guy turns around. He shoots the camera. 

Cold shivers down Akihito’s spine. The tailored suit guy is the yakuza from last night. 

Shit.

Frantically, the incubus opens the other documents. There are other videos just like that one. There are photos of hands and faces and numbers and documents. There are excel sheets with numbers. 

But they’re not numbers, he realises. They’re money logs of black market dealings. Ledgers.

He spends the night clicking through the wreck of information, shock carrying him forward to continue. More ledgers. More videos. More photos. More and more and more people are getting hurt and dying and disappearing as if they were never there.

As the sun rises up, Akihito opens the last document. It’s an excel sheet, but this time, instead of large numbers, they’re small two-digits separated by a ° or a “ or a ‘. They’re coordinates, he realises after a solid 10 minutes of staring at the screen with his final two working brain cells, not money. 

The blond opens google maps and searches the coordinates. It zooms in on a familiar street. Suspicious, he pastes in another coordinate from the document. It’s another familiar street.

With shaky fingers, Akihito copies and pastes a third coordinate. Google maps lands him in the alleyway of the pedophile. 

Yamazaki was right. He’ll need his luck, because they’re onto him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ysayë’s Violin Sonata No. 3, “Ballade”  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biEUK9Winqo
> 
> From Wikipedia:  
> Borodin’s quartet No. 2 is a string quartet in D major written by Alexander Borodin in 1881. It was dedicated to his wife Ekaterina Protopova. Some scholars, such as Borodin's biographer Serge Dianin, suggest that the quartet was a 20th anniversary gift and that it has a program evoking the couple's first meeting in Heidelberg.
> 
> Borodin was a chemist, a composer, and a surgeon. He was born the illegitimate son of a Georgian nobleman.


	4. The Lull Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I-I’m Takato! Nice to meet you, intimidating Lazer Stare Dude.” The other boy holds his hand out to shake. 
> 
> “Nice to meet you, Kou-kun, Takato-kun. I’m Takaba Akihito, your resident cryptic. And good luck on your exams! I know I bombed mine.”

“Hey Kou-kun! You’re looking a lot better than last time,” Akihito chorkles, limbs akimbo. He’s on his way to buy flash drives, and by chance is stopping by a cute cat café he’s never been before. 

Kou, still in his high school uniform, tilts his head up from the cup of black coffee he’s nursing to blink at the blond. “Laser Stare Dude?” 

At that, the other zombified boy next to Kou jolts awake to take in Akihito. “Yo, so  _ he’s _ the Laser Stare Dude? What the hell Kou, you didn't tell me he looks younger than us!”

“What, no! He totally looks older and intimidating when he’s staring you down!” Kou asserts. He fidgets, adjusting his sailor tie. “Sorry about him, he’s a bit of a dunderhead.”

“Who are you calling a dunderhead, idiot!” The other boy rebuts, bonking Kou on the funny bone. 

“Ow! What was that for?” 

Akihito watches on, partly amused and partly confused. “And here I thought I was a knight in shining armour. Instead I’m Laser Stare Dude?”

Kou and the other boy stare in stupor until the blond guffaws in their innocent confusion. 

“I’m just kidding. Let me pay for lunch sometime?” The blond winks. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a job. I’m an adult.”

“Um, yeah! Sure!” Kou hems, obviously on edge. 

“Don’t be nervous. You just seem like a cool guy. Just wanted to say hi and check in on how you were doing.” Akihito approves of Kou’s caution.

“Yeah, thanks for that time.” The boy bows his head. “You really saved me there.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. Just doing my civic duty.” The photographer nods to the other boy. “And who’s your friend?”

“I-I’m Takato! Nice to meet you, intimidating Lazer Stare Dude.” The other boy holds his hand out to shake. 

“Nice to meet you, Kou-kun, Takato-kun. I’m Takaba Akihito, your resident cryptic. And good luck on your exams! I know I bombed mine.”

Akihito laughs uproariously at their sudden panic at the reminder of their exams. He discretely pays for their coffees and heads out amid their headless chicken act, slowly meditating BWV 1006* under his breath all the while. His sixth sense tells him that this is going to be the last bit of normality he’s having in his life. 

**

“Hey, I really need to talk to Asami! Let me in!” Akihito is on the steps of club Sion, aggravation and frustration showing clear in his flyaway limbs and hair. Even though the CD is filled with damning information, the blond can’t deny the dying wish of an innocent man he killed. He lost control, and the man died. 

He’s been losing control so much recently. Maybe it’s because he never had control in the first place. He’s nothing more than a monster masquerading as a human, after all. 

The built man continues to stare ahead, like the photographer is a snobby over-privileged tourist pestering the Queen’s Guard. Like he’s less than a bug on his overpriced shoe. 

“You hear me?  _ A-sa-mi _ . If he’s not here, tell me where he is!” Akihito huffs, the excess life energy buzzing around him and electrifying the air. Abruptly, he takes a metered breath in and out, trying to reign in the energy. He can’t waste it. Killing people is his only source of it. 

Wait, but how about the blond shadow-eyes stopped feeding on after another yakuza tried to get a hit in? Is he still alive? Does this mean that he can feed on people without killing them, as long as he stops in time?

Were all those deaths for nothing? If he can feed on people without killing them, all of Akihito’s self-righteous justifications lose meaning. Not that they had any meaning in the first place.

The hunk of a bodyguard snatches the scuff of his collar, bodily lifting him up and out over to the street. Startled, the teen flails, not that he could hit the man with his shorter arm length. 

“What-” Akihito cuts off and squeals as he is literally thrown to the ground, the concrete meeting his palms and knees. A light shimmering of gold immediately emerges, healing his cuts. Luckily he’s wearing jeans and gloves. 

Looking around to check if there are any witnesses, he sighs in relief that the bodyguards simply turned away after throwing him out and the passerby have ignored the commotion. 

It’s Asami’s loss anyway. From the cold-blooded murders Akihito’s watched all night, returning the CD most probably is the equivalent to actively helping make nightmares like that. It’s better for the world if he keeps it out of sight, or even better, uses it to bring the shady yakuza down. If there’s actual indisputable dirt and it’s publicized well enough, Asami’s fame will practically take the man down himself. 

And last promise or not, he tried. And, well, it’s Asami, a man who has no scruples letting his men beat Akihito up or killing important politicians in full view of cameras. 

As the blond is halfway back to his apartment, an all-black, unplated car slides over and men in black come out, zeroing in on Akihito. 

Around Akihito, Vivaldi’s Winter** builds, the cult chanting of strings intensifying and focusing. Hive mind. He has to run. These guys spell danger. 

Just as the 18-year old starts sprinting, the men dart out and pull him into the car. The last thing he feels is the thrumming crescendo in his chest as he breathes chloroform. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *BWV is Bach Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major. BWV, or Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, simply means Bach Works Catalogue and it’s a list of all known Bach pieces. I don’t know if it’s the same to other instruments, but for classical violinists, Bach is akin to meditation. It’s some kind of shared transcentral daily experience passed down from each generation of teacher to student. Even if you don’t play anything else that day, you play Bach. You breathe with it. It centers you and your music and for a while, all is alright with the world. It sounds nutty but don’t bang it until you try it.   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uju--tMDar8
> 
> **If you haven’t listened yet to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, go listen! Legend has it that he wrote it for a girl’s orphanage orchestra***. I recommend the original version. If you do end up listening to the Max Ricter version, I recommend you listening to the undertones. The piece is not going to make much sense unless you pay attention and sustain the “bass”. 
> 
> Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was shocking at the time (baroque) because it is descriptive music. If you’re used to holy choirs and earth-transcending music, then a man coming in banging out a play-by-play of some dumbass falling on ice is understandably sacreligious. 
> 
> ***The girl’s orphanage orchestra is the Ospedale della Pietà. You can read more about it here. It’s really cool. Like babies can anonymously become the era’s pop stars.   
> https://interlude.hk/vivaldis-internationally-renowned-orphanage-orchestra/  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ospedale_della_Piet%C3%A0
> 
> Man now that I look back on it learning Violin is kinda like a cult with its own history and culture lol. My appreciation for my teacher has risen tenfold over the course of writing this chapter. What a champ, putting up with my dumbassery and zero memory retention all these years.


	5. Strength in Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”- Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***OOC! Akihito warning

Akihito wakes up slowly, and then all at once. It’s gun oil on feathers, the quieting coos of a caged bird, the sharp poison of plastic on fire. It’s somebody giving up fighting and thrashing in the water only to float on their back, the last breath before waking up from a nightmare, the inevitability of night. 

It feels like a broken clock ticking on, but the arms never moving. It’s betrayal cast in the amber of a still beating heart. Akihito doesn’t know what it truly is, but he feels the immensity of it within the wood and the walls and the air. The boy can taste the echoes of it steeped through years, even through the different feelings of a dozen people in this room and hundreds more before them. 

He opens his eyes.

A man regards him and exits through an oriental room divider. Akihito can spot Chinese dragons and snakes all around, like Bai Longma*. Wow, conceited much?

The other men stationed around start to mutter in Chinese. Akihito doesn’t understand the words, but he can sure as well understand the intentions. They’re nothing good. 

“Who are you? What do you want? Why did you take me?!” The blond struggles and finds his wrists chained together from the ceiling and his feet dangling. His shoulders and wrists would be killing him, but instead he finds the familiar tingling of the gold energy in those places. 

For the first time in a long while, he’s well and truly afraid. There’s no way out, bound and surrounded like this. He knows no one and nothing here, not even the language. The air tastes different: more humid and more smoke. He’s probably not even in Japan anymore. 

The men start to perk up and eye him, roving up and down his exposed body. Akihito’s shirt rides up his midriff. He can smell the building want in the air. In the creepiest way, one man starts sniffing the air and comes closer, until he’s sniffing his neck. The blond throws himself as far away as possible, but it’s not far considering he’s strung up by his hands. 

Akihito’s pulse ratchets. The sniffing man smirks to the other men, and says something. The other men come closer to sniff him too. One begins to touch him, only for a man with a mini whip to bark something. 

The sniffing men say something back, and the whip man stares at the blond. “Where is the drug?”

“W-what?” Akihito shifts in his chains, the clinking 

“Don’t play funny! The smell, what drug is it?”

“I don’t know! Why did you take me?” Is he talking about Euphoria? Why would euphoria have a smell?

The man cracks his whip across Akihito’s shoulders. The boy arches and howls, pain lancing through him. He dangles and bounces on the chains, swinging around helplessly. He feels more than sees golden shimmers repairing the sure-forming bruise from the hit. 

Behind him, a man yells in surprise, but the whip-man quiets them once more. Another man quickly touches his fingers to his head and chest and shoulders as he mutters a hurried amen. 

“Don’t be smart. Answer the question. Or not. That was just a warm up, after all.” Whip man smiles, and it’s not a nice thing. 

“You must get off on hurting boys.” The blond glares up at whip man. He’s terrified, but hell if he’s going to show it. 

“Hmph. I’ll ask another question. Where is the CD?”

“I don’t know! And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

This time, Akihito is ready for the hit. He yelps and bites his cheek, spitting in defiance. Except, what comes out is blood and a bit of gold that dances in the air before evaporating away, like the reflection of Christmas tinsel on glass. 

Shit.

The men are definitely close enough to see the scintilla. 

The men point at Akihito and it’s an uproar. The incubus is afraid, but he can also see the abject fear and wonder and curiosity in their eyes too. It makes him even more afraid. They found out. Are they going to sell him? Experiment on him? Lock him away? Kill him for the abomination in which he is?

Until the man who left in the beginning slams back into the room with another man with long hair. Everyone bows to Mr. Long Hair, and it’s quiet. 

“Come with me.”

Whip man unchains his wrists from the ceiling. Akihito comes.

**

“My men say that you smell of long lost memories. That gold rises from you. And that in the hotel, they saw an angel.”

Akihito gulps. The tang of his leftover blood grounds him. It’s pretty damning evidence. But angel? In what world is he an angel?

“To me, you smell like my father’s favorite tea. It’s been out of production for years now.” Mr. Long Hair’s gaze is piercing, like a snow leopard tracking non-native prey. And, “It’s not a drug, is it?”

The long-haired man steps closer to the bed Akihito is splayed on, clothes in disarray. The unforgiving wrist cuffs bite into the blond’s skin, tiny trills of amber sputtering in and out of existence around the cuffs as blood beads around the metal. The man eyes him, lingering on the cuffs, and sits, pulling Akihito over his knees. 

“I said I won’t say anything!” The shorter protests, wriggling to get free. “And even if I did, you won’t believe me.” In the distance, Sarajevo** echoes all around the duo. 

The older man pins him to his lap with one unmoving hand on the small of his back and another clenching bruises on his nape. The color of sunlight sparkles around his neck, the healing light proof of his otherworldliness. Akihito dug his grave, and now he must lie in it. 

No matter how much he thrashes or throws himself backwards, the older man just binds him further, presses him down harder, until Akihito wrings himself into exhaustion, into some kind of macabre submission. The air grows thicker with the taste of ozone. Of want. How the hell is this getting the man off?

“You’re quite limber and light for your size. Like you’re a bird.” The Chinese man remarks. “I can feel your little heart fluttering through your back.”

Like that’s not disturbing at all. 

“What do you want?” The blond manages to exhale out between his heaving breaths. “What are you doing with me?”

The man sighs and his hands wander across Akihito’s shoulders and neck and thighs. The shorter stays pliant in surrender, not daring to drink from the skin contact, even as he’s being practically undressed. In the back of his mind, he remarks on how much more control he has compared to even a few days ago. He’s growing into his powers.

“What I wanted is less important now than what I have before me. But if you want to play that game... Tell me, Takaba Akihito, why did Asami trust you with the CD? Why did he dangle an angel like you in the spotlight, ripe for the picking? What game is he playing? Are you his pawn, or a queen?”

“Why does it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?” 

“It matters because what you say next determines your fate. Maybe I’ll cut out your organs and sell them on the street. Maybe I’ll keep you here, forever, my pretty songbird in a cage. Or maybe I’ll string you up on drugs and let old men fuck you until you die, and it won’t be freedom you’ll be begging for, but the drugs. You might even catch a disease and die early.”

For long moments, Akihito can’t breath, air shuttered in his lungs. Then reality crashes down hard. These men are not playing around. They have blood dripping from their ledger, and a little bit more won’t make a difference. These men will kill, and without impunity. If they want him begging for his life, they will. The blond has to, because his pride will kill him otherwise.

“Please. I’m scared.” Akihito whispers into fine-spun sheets. He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for, but he’s desperate. No one’s coming for him. No one probably knows he’s even gone. No one’s going to save him but himself.

“Then tell me, little bird. Where is the CD?”

“I… I deleted it. Wiped it clean. I saw what was on there, and I couldn’t handle it-”

A smack falls on his backside, loud in the silence of the room. As bright pain turns to a background burn, gold shimmers weakly around the handprint and he involuntarily mewls in pain. Akihito has been getting used to his sharper-than normal senses and the bouts of overstimulation over the months, but he can never get used to the sharpness of pain. It cuts through all logic, every self-grounding technique he tries. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

“I-I did! Agh!” The blond chokes as he’s hit again. There’s no more healing. It hurts and the ever empty vacuum inside him is opening its maw and he’s terrified. He wriggles to get out, but an iron hand slams him down back into position. The next slap comes hard enough to make Akihito scream. 

“So you do have a limit.” The man muses, almost to himself. 

“I didn’t give it to Asami. I swear-” He wants to drink but the smacks come unpredictably and the pain blinds him enough to prevent him from taking energy from the contact. That doesn't make sense, though. Before, the best time he can drink is when he's hurt and in pain. Why has that changed? “Please, stop!”

“You know how to make it stop. Where is the CD?” The man emphasizes his question with more smacks raining down without hesitation. 

“It’s in my apartment! Behind the toaster,” Akihito coughs out, voice wet with tears.

“Good boy. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” The man rubs his ass, and the blond hisses. The shorter blinks away the moisture he didn’t know was gathering in his eyes. The older man runs a finger up his cheeks to capture them. This close, the Chinese is stupidly beautiful for someone this savage and inhumane. 

“Please. No more.” The shorter can’t help but beg. It’s humiliating, but he’s lost the right to his pride the moment he’s killed that girl. Healing gone, senses going haywire, he’s not sure he can handle much more. 

“Shh. It’s alright.” The boy is pulled up to sit in the man’s lap, careful of his inflamed skin. “You did well.”

“I-I need-” Akihito sobs out, reaching out for the man’s open chest, suckling for energy. He’s hurting and oh so hungry. 

The man’s eyes gleam in interest. “Go ahead, little bird.” 

It’s all Akihito needs. Once his fingers touch skin, gold blooms around them and the incubus _drinks_ . The man moans, deep and low, eyes lidding. The blond takes long, gulping breaths, pain subsiding and overstimulation muting as he’s swept up in the haze of ambrosia. The long haired man is now a fire reigniting from it’s smoke, the deep unsuspecting pull of riptides, the bone-deep blare of a tornado dancing closer. It’s still gun oil on feathers and the dying coos of a caged bird, but _less_ somehow. Less lonely. Less betrayal. More _this is now mine_. 

The Chinese gently grabs his hands and holds them out of the way, pulling him away from his haze. The mist around them settles and dissipates as Akihito is casually manhandled and tucked into bed. The boy whines and paws for more, but the man just chuckles and pats his head like he’s a housebroken puppy, evading the hands with ease. 

“Rest,” the man whispers. 

And Akihito is pulled under. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***OOC! Akihito warning: (pretty long, skip if don’t want to read. I’ll cover why FeiLong was OOC in the next chapter, which is pretty important.)
> 
> Akihito does not hope for Asami to save him. It’s not like canon, where these two have lots of interactions they’ve built up some kind of relationship. All Akihito knows of Asami is that Asami is the yakuza guy who beat him up and chased him on a roof and knows his identity. He’s the yakuza who mercilessly tortures and kills people on camera, who has his fingers in so many illegal pies it’s inconceivable. He’s the yakuza who is probably coming for him to string him up by his guts for the city to see. 
> 
> The only reason why he doesn’t use the CD to turn Asami in is because unconscious or not, he doesn’t want handouts. He now has a taste for what kind of man Asami is, but he needs to gather his own evidence to take him down, by his own means. To justify not turning Asami in via the CD to himself, he uses the logic of not disrespecting the last dying wish of the “innocent” man he’s killed because he feels guilty that he lost control and killed someone “not bad”. 
> 
> So he’s been kidnapped. He’s alone, in a foreign country, with only one or two people who speak his language. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s getting brutally interrogated and he’s surrounded by dangerous people. He has no hope of getting out except by relying on himself. 
> 
> And he wants to keep as much of his incubus powers secret as possible, because he doesn’t know what they are going to do once they know more. He doesn’t even know the extent of his own powers, and his powers scare him. His powers made him a murderer, and he’s tried to justify it by targeting “bad” people, but recently the people he’s been feeding off of have been targets of convenience. “Innocent” people. 
> 
> So yeah. He hasn’t slept in over 48 hours except for the chloroform, and he spent those hours in a haze and shock of Asami’s criminal doings. He’s been fearing for his life (Asami has his ID, and now this FeiLong guy kidnaps and tortures him) consistently. 
> 
> He knows he can’t overpower them and run away- they will most likely capture him and torture him until he dies, or better yet, shoot him on the spot. He’s tired and hungry and overstimulated. And in canon, he does in fact beg when he hears his friends can be in danger. It’s not that far a stretch for him to beg when his life is currently in danger, especially as he has no support system. This Akihito has no family, no friends (Kou and Takato are just acquaintances by this point), and his new senpai turned out to try to kill him. He doesn’t trust anyone. 
> 
> The only trump he has is his incubus powers, and even trying to control them, he succumbs to them with FeiLong. He’s lost his trump card, has no way to get out, and just wants everything to stop. So he bites down his pride and protests and just… submits. He knows if he calculates it right, gets on his captor’s good side, then maybe he can escape. Then maybe the pain and fear will stop. He’ll act weak and go with them, and when the chance comes, he’ll run with everything he has. 
> 
> Plus, well. FeiLong drugs him. 
> 
> It’s his only hope and plan as of now. He knows there’s a time and place for defiance, and now is not the time nor place. 
> 
> *Bai Longma is literally white dragon horse. He’s a third dragon prince that can turn into a horse in the Journey to the West. He’s pretty low key, and is the long-suffering uncle who’s dragged along SunWuKong’s antics.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longma  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Dragon_Horse
> 
> **Max Ritcher’s Sarajevo  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTvhR0lEtZM


	6. Songbird in a Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s quite some ill will there, little kitten.” The blond whips back to witness FeiLong unbuttoning his top and lounging on the bed. He has a star-shaped scar on his chest, right next to where his heart should be. Bullet wound. “Come here. You did something naughty.”
> 
> “I’ll rather stay here, thanks.” When did he come in? Now that he extends his senses, he can feel the familiar dark signature of betrayal. But it’s changed, somehow. It’s lighter, breezier and settling into a new focus. Like shifting from the past to the present.
> 
> Fei’s eyes darken. “That wasn’t a request.”

Every time he’s drifting towards wakefulness, he’s pulled back under. He’s scared, and clawing for ground to wake once, twice, a dozen times. 

When Akihito finally awakes, it’s to an empty bed and an aching hand and a beating heart. He’s groggy and his throat feels like sand and his head is stuffed with cotton. That long-hair man must have drugged him something fierce. Everything feels swollen, sounds and textures and smells mutating out of proportion. Like standing in the midst of Shibuya crossing, sensing the masses coalescing into murk.

Sitting up, nausea and lightheadedness hits the blond like a truck. He’s in the same opulent room as before, where the man  _ spanked _ him like some misbehaving child. Glancing down, the blond spots a bandage wrapping his right wrist and Chinese silks adorning his body. 

He’s been bathed. And on his neck, a metal collar, with a bell, like a cat. No matter how many times he twists and pulls at it and almost chokes himself, the collar doesn’t come off. He can’t feel a latch. The only thing on the collar is a hole. It needs a special key. He can feel bruises forming around his neck from his own fingers and the unyielding metal. And his body doesn’t heal them.

The flash drive-

Akihito moves his legs only to hear metal gently clink. He’s chained to the bed with a damn harem girl anklet, a twisting oroborus inscribed within. Like he’s a banded bird. He scratches at the circle of metal, yanking and squeezing it to fit over his foot. No luck. Somehow, when he was sleeping, they  _ melded _ the ring to form one uniform circle and then soldered chains onto the ring. Tiny chains, small enough to not look off as a length of necklace. But as hard as Akihito pulls and heaves, the chains and metal and collar all hold strong. 

Tears of frustration almost well up, but the blond takes a deep breath and holds. 

The flash drive. With all the information. It was in his right sock, but now it isn’t. Quickly scanning the room, he finds no evidence of his old clothes. Did it fall out of the sock when they changed him? Did they discover the flash drive? 

Standing up, he half staggers, blood pressure low, until he waits to straighten up again and heads for the door, the metal and bell rattling and jingling as he moves. No luck. It’s locked, deadbolted. Luckily, the chain extends enough to comfortably amble across the room. Not that it’s something to be appreciated. 

Akihito bangs on the door for minutes or hours. He’s not sure how long. “Please, is there someone?”

Abruptly, the door opens and the motion pushes Akihito to the ground with a muffled yelp. The man who originally came with the long hair man eyes him and gently toes the door closed. 

“So you’re awake.” 

“Who are you? What did you do to my clothes?” 

The man arches an eyebrow. “Yoh. And they were trashed.”

“What? I-I need them.” Akihito crouches to rise up from the floor to see Yoh’s hand in front of his face. He slaps the hand away, getting up on his own. “Why? Where are they?”

“You mean for this?” Yoh takes out a thumb drive from his suit pocket. The blond’s face pales.

“How-”

“It’s in my posession, Takaba Akihito. It never came to BaiShe.”

“So that’s what you people are? BaiShe? Another mafia? And how do you know my name?” Akihito spits out, fire in his eyes.

Yoh sighs, sitting down on an extravagant settee. He pets the seat next to him, but Akihito plops down on the fainting couch diagonal from him instead.

“Yes. This-” Yoh motions to the collar, “signals that you’re BaiShe. Everyone knows who you are and who you belong to.” 

“I’m not some kind of property! Just you wait. I’ll find some way out and you’ll never find me again!”

“I do not advise you to run. If you do, you’ll be recognized and brought back anyway. And you won’t like the FeiLong LaoBan’s punishment.”

Inadvertently, Akihito’s hand strays to protect his behind until he notices and stills. Everyone in this hellhole hits hard and unrepentantly. Asami. His goons. Whip man. Long hair man. They’re all sadistic bastards. “Yeah, well he can only punish me if he catches me. Which is not going to happen!”

Yoh looks at the blond like he’s a kid and he needs to grow up to understand how the world works before he inadvertently kills himself. The photographer bristles. He’s not some child they can control and lock away! He’s been living in this world just fine!

The right-hand man stands up to leave and pats the blond’s hip like he’s shushing a startled animal. “I’ll see you around, Takaba-san.”

“You-!” The door slams shut, locks sliding back in with a finality. Glancing down, there’s a note folded into his hip pocket.

_ It’s in Asami’s hands now. _

_ -Y _

**

It’s been three hours. Akihito has searched the room up and down, sideways and backwards. The few windows need a key to be unlocked. The air vent is too small to fit into, and there’s nothing sharp at all in the room. The edges of tables and the bedframe have been rounded out. 

The adjoined bathroom is the same story, fitted with childproof locks on the cabinets. There’s not even a mirror.

“I hope that Fei guy trips and breaks his neck,” Akihito mutters.

“That’s quite some ill will there, little kitten.” The blond whips back to witness FeiLong unbuttoning his top and lounging on the bed. He has a star-shaped scar on his chest, right next to where his heart should be. Bullet wound. “Come here. You did something naughty.”

“I’ll rather stay here, thanks.” When did he come in? Now that he extends his senses, he can feel the familiar dark signature of betrayal. But it’s changed, somehow. It’s lighter, breezier and settling into a new focus. Like shifting from the past to the present.

Fei’s eyes darken. “That wasn’t a request.”

Akihito spots the main door slightly ajar. “Make me.” He is ready to run. He hears the heartbeats of one- no, two men in sentry outside, but if he takes them by surprise, he might just make it. Tangle them all in his chain, take a gun to shoot himself free and get away in the confusion. If there’s anything he knows how to do, it’s running. 

“Very well.”

The blond barely breathes before FeiLong steps over in three long strides. The smaller ducks to sprint down the door, but Feilong simply snatches his chain and he tumbles, face-first in a mess of bell chimes. 

“Nngh-” Feilong wastes no time in dragging Akihito back to the bed by his hair, dodging errant fists like it’s nothing. The shorter can feel individual strands snapping and clumps of hair fall out in bloody messes as he resists, the pain almost unbearable. To FeiLong, though it’s probably just another day. The man pulls the shorter over his lap into a familiar position. “No, not again-!”

And shoves down Akihito’s pants and slaps him hard enough for the shockwave to reverberate up the boy’s spine. For a second, all the boy can see is white, but then the pain hits and he screams like a banshee. His collar’s bell jingles with every smack of FeiLong’s unrelenting hand. “If you don’t like it then maybe you shouldn’t have misbehaved, little bird. Or, should I say kitten?”

Akihito’s too busy wailing and sobbing to respond. Just beyond the door, he hears more heartbeats than the two before, and chuckling. “For such a delicate little thing, he’s sure got a pair of lungs on him.”

“I wonder how he’ll sound on my dick. I bet he’ll mewl real nicely.”

“Wish I could see him cry. Fei LaoBan is really having all the fun.”

“Didn’t you hear about the weird light he was giving off the other day? Wonder what it’ll be like to actually bury myself into an angel.”

“Shit, he’s really an angel? No way that’s real. Thought those didn’t exist outside of the bible. How’d Fei LaoBan get his hands on one?”

The blond tries to catch his breath, to focus on something other than the fire on his behind and whispers beyond the door and reprimands toppling from FeiLong’s mouth and the haunting loneliness etched in the halls. He’s like a radio switching spazzicaly from one station to another. There’s tension building in his chest, spreading across his body, so strong he can’t breathe around it. Until he can. 

“ _ Mak _ ing my  _ men,”  _ Fei stresses with his heavy hand, blows raining viciously down on each word. “Travel,” 

“All” 

“The”

“Way”

“To your apartment”

“Only to find”

“Nothing.”

“ _ You” _

“Made me”

“ _ Lose” _

_ “Face _ .”

Akihito knows his body is in pain, that he feels the weight of chains on his foot, hears the jingle of the bell on his neck, the mocking laughter in the hallway, the smokiness of the air, the taste of ozone  _ want _ , the hot blood dripping down his scalp to his eyes and nose and mouth. He knows he’s howling bloody murder and choking on his hiccups while FeiLong is still punishing him. He knows he’s hungry and parched and his head hurts and he can’t see straight, but it’s all fading away. 

It’s getting quiet, like everything’s distant. He’s at peace. Finlandia’s hymn* rises up from the darkness around him, and envelops him whole.

He doesn’t care about anything anymore. It doesn’t matter. He’s a pebble in a river, a simple fish carried under by a tsunami. 

The boy floats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FeiLong’s OOCness:
> 
> FeiLong doesn’t care about Akihito. In canon, he hurts Akihito and rapes him not because he’s attracted to him, but so that he can hurt Asami. When things don’t go his way, FeiLong fucked Akihito until he bled and let his men torture him. He also had Akihito’s friends hostage to threaten him with. However, here, Akihito doesn’t have friends, so if something does go wrong, Akihito’s own body is collateral. And FeiLong doesn’t hesitate to collect his collateral when he finds that the CD is wiped empty. 
> 
> He would fuck Akihito as collateral, except he doesn’t exactly know what his abilities are except that they work on healing and contact and smell. He also knows that Akihito has an incredibly low pain tolerance from whip man’s earlier work. A civilian child’s level pain tolerance. So he doesn’t have to fuck Akihito to get the point across, which is risky. He just has to hurt him, which has been shown to be safe for all parties except Akihito. 
> 
> In Flower on the High Loft, it’s canon that FeiLong remarks that he would have killed the traitor even when he knows the traitor’s daughter is ransomed. He doesn’t shy away from hands on violence. To compare, Asami just let the traitor go with the agreed upon money. To make it worse, it is 7 years later and BaiShe is still weak from it’s collapse, so FeiLong has to be extra hard in making an example with Akihito.
> 
> It’s a dire situation for FeiLong because the CD is important, and losing it makes the entire BaiShe seem incompetent. Even though Akihito can’t do anything by this point, FeiLong did claim him as a part of the BaiShe (due to his interesting abilities) and he still has to show his subordinates that there are consequences. FeiLong needs to punish him, brutally, but he’s still a civilian. Akihito is under FeiLong’s personal protection, so he can’t just send him to be tortured in the BaiShe dungeons like Yoh. So he spanks Akihito with the door open to let his subordinates hear the screams. 
> 
> And if you think a spanking is ever gentle, think again, especially for someone like Akihito whose senses are always on 11 since his awakening. It’s the equivalent of all-out hitting a baby. To a baby, every sensation is loud and new. Even thirst is unbearable, whereas adults often don’t even realise they are thirsty until hours later. Really, poor Akihito.
> 
> *Finlandia was originally written for a fundraiser for the Finnish newspaper as a tone poem by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. However, it was really a protest against Russian authority. The “hymn” is just a part of the entire Finlandia. It represents the everlasting Finnish spirit against the Russian subjugation. It was later put to words as a sung hymn, but Sibelius didn’t support the sung version. Finlandia is now a national song of Finland. 
> 
> Lol playing Finlandia is like a high school orchestra rite of passage. So is 1812. We didn’t have cannons, but we sure had hearing-loss certified speakers doubling as cannons.  
> Hymn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDia8bTiQc8  
> Sung Hymn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns2A5yUMZhU  
> Finlandia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lCnguTtsSQ
> 
> I had a hard time choosing. Either it was Finlandia, Vaughan William’s The Lark Ascending (another poem song), or Maurice Ravel’s Jeux D’Eau. I wanted something peaceful and ephemeral. In the end, Finlandia’s historical significance well parallels Akihito’s struggles, so Finlandia it is. 
> 
> However, lots of neo-modern composers also fit the bill. Ólafur Arnalds, Jóhann Jóhannsson (RIP), Max Richter, Yann Tiersen (his Amélie track), to name a few. Check them out!


	7. Gift-Curse of Human Adaptability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hold on tight folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The boy lulls to shore by ice cubes slipping into his mouth. He can still feel the muted hums of the hymn carrying him above. The boy’s head lolls, and the cubes slip out. 

“Shhh.” A hand pats the boy’s head. “Fei LaoBan told me to let you drink. To bring you back.”

The boy blinks. It’s... Yoh? Hm. It doesn’t really matter.

“Stay with me. Tell me 5 things you can see.”

Akihito ignores him. The world is soft. Nothing’s important.

“Akihito. This is urgent. Tell me 5 things you can see.”

He doesn’t want to. It’s making the hymn fade away. But if Yoh’s insisting on it, maybe he’ll humor him. 

He opens his lips. “Yoh,” his voice cracks in his slurring whisper, throat raw from screaming so long. 

“Yes. 5 things you can see.”

“Y-Yoh. White.” The boy wets his lips but coughs instead. He tastes metal on his tongue. 

“What else?” Yoh prods. 

“White. Wall. Floor.” The boy tries to focus his eyes. “Bed.”

“Good.” The boy exhales. Yoh puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder, rubbing circles. “Can you name 4 things you can feel?“

“Soft. Dry.” The words come easier as the boy’s tongue unsticks from the mix of coagulated blood and dried spit in his mouth. “Smoke. Sticky.” 

“Thank you. I need you to tell me 3 things you can hear.”

A pause. “Cicadas. Footsteps.” The boy slurs less with each word. “Heartbeats.” 

“That really helps. Can you tell me 2 things you can smell?” Yoh’s voice seems louder than before like someone’s just handed him a microphone. The boy jolts, a bit, and realises he’s naked, on the bed.

“Gun oil. Tears.”

“And one thing you can taste.”

“Blood.”

“That’s good, Akihito.” Yoh dabs FengYouJing* on the boy’s upper lips. The bite of icy cold burns his skin and his next inhale isn’t any better. Mn. Spicy air. “Take deep breaths for me.”

“What time is it?” Akihito manages to get out. He’s in the same room he was in before. The locks are in place like nothing happened. But over the edge of the bed, he can spot crimson droplets on the floor, staining the carpet.

“It’s Tuesday, 5:06 in the afternoon.” At Akihito’s incomprehension, he adds “It’s been eleven days since you arrived.”

What? Where did all the time go? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was talking with Kou and trying to get a CD to Asami?

But no. He’s lost time: from the chloroform, from FeiLong’s drug, from the punishment. 

Oh. The punishment. 

Yoh hands him a glass of water. “Drink.” Akihito doesn’t take it. Yoh’s lips quirk up for a second. “You’re learning.”

The man takes a sip and hands the rest to the blond. He swallows it all in one go. The liquid goes cool and refreshing down his throat, but only makes him thirstier. And thirsty for something else, too. 

Yoh buttons off his shirt, cloth shifting noisily in the otherwise silent room. The older male shifts them so they’re chest to chest, breaths mingling, fingers interlocking on both sides of their heads. The position change only calls to attention how much Akihito’s hurting all over. Skin to skin, Akihito feels scars spider-webbing outwards on Yoh, cool and smooth. 

“Go on. Take. Don’t worry, I know about it.”

Akihito lets loose the greed he didn't know he’s holding back. With this much skin contact, he can take so much more so much faster than he ever could. Gold rises around the two bodies, and the incubus locks his mouth with Yoh’s, sucking deep lungfuls of ambrosia. His hurts vanish and tears bead in his eyes in the absence of pain. And he feels Yoh. So much Yoh. 

Yoh’s essence is quiet. Raindrops on a window, the smell of old books, the feel of a favorite teddy bear aged through time. It’s the gentle buildup of snow, heavy and hushed, through the night. It’s dependability and stubbornness and loyalty. 

Yoh doesn’t make a noise, except, “That’s enough for now, Akihito.” And he breaks away from the incubus, with faint amusement on his face. Like denying a child more dessert at dinner. 

Unknowingly, Akihito pouts, sliding his legs off the bed. They buckle, the moment ruined by his collar jingling, and Yoh catches him. He drinks from the touch, but Yoh leans out of reach again. 

“You’re having tea with Fei Lao Ban. Go clean up.” The blond regains his balance and glares at Yoh. 

“I’m not a dog! Don’t order me around!” Akihito sputters, arms akimbo. “And don’t follow me in the bathroom, you old perv!”

**

Akihito wastes as much time as possible in the shower. He guzzles water straight from the tap and stays under the spray of water so hot his skin first burns then prunes. While shampooing his head, he finds little baby hairs have sprouted in places where clumps of his hair have been ripped out. It’s sensitive, but all the blood is dried. 

It’s the same with his ass and thighs. There are no marks like he would have expected. Only soreness, like he’s exercised too hard the day before. 

Ah. There’s nothing like washing away blood, sweat and tears. 

But - there’s still bandages on his right hand. He unravels it, layer by layer until he’s met with the same insignia of his anklet tattooed on his wrist. He’s property. That Fei guy’s property. They actually fucking marked him, like he’s cattle for a farmer to count at feeding time. 

When he’s spent as much time as he could feasibly excuse, he towels off and heads in the bedroom, only to find an outfit laid out for him. A cute little traditional outfit. 

He gets it. They own him. He’ll give Fei a piece of his mind when he sees him. Also, how do they expect him to wear pants with his manacle?

“Takaba-san.” Akihito whirls around. It’s Yoh, coming in the room from the hallway. “Please allow me to help you.”

“Help me? You can help me by getting some normal clothes! Or helping me burn off this mark! Or help me escape!”

“Takaba-san.” Yoh’s visage does not change. “I’ll be unlocking your chain.”

**

By the time Akihito’s properly dressed and walking through the sprawling mansion to Fei’s room, he’s spotted no less than three dozen men in suits stop and stare at him. Even a few maids giggle and whisper when he passes. 

The blond’s cheeks heat up the more he’s gawked at. Thankfully, he’s not dragging along with him the chain, so he’s not dying of embarrassment. But he’s pretty close as the bell on his collar tinkles with his every step. “Yoh. What are they saying?”

The man abruptly stops, knocking on an arched door. “We’re here. And it’s nothing to worry about.”

Yeah, right.

Akihito breathes in, and steps into the room, only to get a lungful of something truly nasty. He’s hacking hard enough to lean on the doorframe, both his mouth and nose assaulted by the scent of incense and tobacco. He desperately wheezes in when he’s not coughing, but it feels like his lungs are closing. 

He doesn’t know how it turned from just walking to fighting for his life. He’s hyperventilating and lightheaded, somehow crouching on the carpet, trying to gasp air in. 

“Medic!” Someone yells, but Akihito can’t be bothered to know who. He’s being dragged away from the doorway to another room, but it doesn’t make a difference. It seems the more he tries to breathe, the less air he gets. He can’t see far beyond the black spots and hear beyond the high pitched ringing. 

Frantically, someone rips open his top and pushes his heaving back onto their chest, skin to skin. “Concentrate, Akihito! Take from me.” Akihito doesn’t quite know what they’re saying, but he knows the gist. 

It’s hard to focus on taking energy and opening the connection when he can’t even inhale, but he manages. But once he starts, his breathing gets easier and easier, and it’s instinct to _take_. 

The glittering gold mist slowly rises, like a timelapse of morning fog. In the sunlight, it looks like halos illuminating on them. Unknown to Akihito, a shimmering outline of his wings form, wrapping around his lithe body. His skin begins to glow like he’s made of liquid sunlight himself. 

And then he’s shoved away, contact cutting off unexpectedly. He falls on his knees and hands. A sharp corner cuts his palm on his way down, but golden light seals away the wound before blood wells up. 

“What was that?” He cranes his neck around. He’s in a sunroom, filled with couches and plush chairs. In front of him lies a thick hedge of bushes stretching what seems like forever onwards. If he strains, he thinks he can hear the honk of cars, the smell of fresh fruit and fish, the decay of street sewage. Maybe escape isn’t so far. 

“You had an asthma attack.” Yoh intones solemnly. It’s not just Yoh here. There’s a boy, around 6 or 7, making faces at him. And of course, FeiLong. 

“It’s not a common first reaction to drug smoke if you don’t have preexisting conditions, but it’s common enough,” Fei sighs like he’s made an inconvenience. “Come on. We’re having tea in your room.”

“Did I-”

“Ask your questions inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. Akihito’s healing is basically an open secret by this point lmao. RIP his plans to keep his head down and act normal.
> 
> I always had issues with how Akihito can bound off into the sunset after the Hong Kong arc perfect as ever. A few days on an island and sex with Asami apparently makes it all better. Nope. 
> 
> PTSD and dissociation doesn’t happen out of the blue, and it doesn’t go away on it’s own either. From the amount of life and death stunts in the series, Akihito has a few lifetimes worth of trauma. Even the most well-adjusted person won’t come back the same. Akihito needs to learn coping skills for what happens to him, because the ride is going to get wilder. 
> 
> *FengYouJing is Tiger Balm. It’s used for everything. It’s basically treated as health insurance by Chinese grandmoms. It’s the equivalent of Vicks VapoRub but better. VapoRub’s essential oil content is around 8.6%, but FengYouJing’s concentration is 50-80%, with the majority lying around 70%. 
> 
> The menthol and mint oil is what gives a cooling feel, while the camphor and clove oils produce a warm feel. Put heating and cooling together and you have a temperature trick that will distract pain nerves and decrease pain or itch. It’s a sensation distraction. Pain and itch nerve pathways are interlinked, and in some parts, one and the same. Yeah! Biochemistry major coming in handy. Lol.
> 
> Anyway, in asian households, it’s also used as a rude awakening lmao.


	8. A Mare on Your Chest

“Tao, can you make some tea?” FeiLong lounges majestically on the settee. 

The boy fidgets. “But Fei-LaoBan…”

“I’m sorry, but I’m really feeling some licorice tea now. If you would?” Fei smiles, gently. “Thank you, Tao.”

The child glances back as he exits the room, question clear in his face. 

“Ah. Sit down, Takaba Akihito.” Fei waves his hand lazily. 

The blond gulps. It’s this again. “No thanks, I’ll rather stand.” 

The mob boss laughs. “Your ass still hurts?”

“No thanks to you!” Akihito spits out vehemently. Now that it’s mentioned, though, there’s no residual pain or ache. In fact, he feels as good as after sucking someone’s lifeforce dry. Just a few days ago, drinking off of someone and reaching for skin was as easy as blinking, but now he has to concentrate to do so. Is it because… he’s killed an innocent from his carelessness? Is that what it takes to learn control?

He shakes his head. Now’s not the time to think about it. 

FeiLong eyes the blond. “I suppose I owe you an apology. I meant to cause you pain, yes, but not for you to… detach. You can’t take pain well, can you.” He sighs, and takes out a pipe, but then decides otherwise. “Your body is meant for pleasure, not pain.”

“Ha! You can’t be serious. I’m not built for anything you think I am.”

“In that case, I think I know more about your body than you. Your body doesn’t lie.”

It seems like Akihito can’t escape the seriousness of the conversation. “Then what do you think I am?”

Fei stares at him, assessing. A glance to his left shows Yoh doing the same, with more subtlety. “Your golden hue, the way you drink pleasure, how you heal. It’s inhuman.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Akihito is unnerved. “You’re keeping me here, you’ve branded me, you’ve chained me down. You can’t just do that to someone! I need air and the sun and freedom and to make my own choices about my own damned life!”

“I told you. You’re my little bird. Yes, I’m keeping you. But do you honestly think other people will treat you with the same courtesy? They’ll lure you in with kindness and friendship until it’s too late and you’re tied to an exam table being cut open to examine how you tick. They’ll test how much you can heal until you can’t anymore, how much pain you can take, and no matter how much you scream they won’t stop. And when they’ve taken all that they can from you, they’ll bid pieces of you to the richest labs and you’ll be cut up and shipped all around the world to be displayed like a trophy.”

The blond twists, uncomfortable, and walks shakily backwards until his knees hit the bed. He flails and lands on his back, puffing up the comforter around him. “Stop it. Don’t you think I know that?”

“The tattoo is the BaiShe insignia. You’re under my protection now.”

“You.. you bastard!”

“That’s the most you can come up with? I suppose I didn’t quite spank the impertinence out of you, yet. Don’t worry, we can always have a repeat performance.”

“Fuck you! I’m not a child, and I’m certainly not your property.” Akihito tears at the bell, and surprisingly, it bounces off, rattling once, twice, onto the floor. He’s shocked at how easy it is. He yanks at the collar and the anklet again, but it’s as before- no matter how long or hard he struggles, they don’t budge. “Get these off me, you pervert!”

“No,” FeiLong laughs. He’s clearly taking amusement in the blond’s distress. But it’s not funny. The blond feels the walls coming in, slowly. The room is getting smaller, and Fei and Yoh are getting closer even though Akihito knows they’re not moving. “I don’t think I will.”

“Let me go.”

“No.” Akihito inhales at the immediate response.

“I need to go. I have a life, back home. People will miss me. Asami will know I’m missing.”

“No. I don’t think I will.”

“Why not?”

The answer is so simple for something so life changing. “Because I don’t want to.”

To keep him caged, paraded around. To be hurt on the whims of a ruthless mob boss. To be helpless and suffocated until time melds into a confusing, amorphous ghost. 

Even the bugs outside the window have more freedom than he does. The birds, the carefully curated flowers in the garden-they all have a better life than he does. It burns something sick down to his stomach. Gold slowly rises from his skin, dancing to outline wings. He’s vibrating out of his flesh. He’s disgusted. He can’t be caged here, until he’s broken into some kind of pet. 

Like screaming underwater, something shatters inside him. And a voice* rises around him, bubbling up from the murky blue depths, pushing forth. 

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

_He told me to walk away but I wouldn’t get far_

_Tell me how do people know what is life, what is love_

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

There’s someone yelling, and a crash, but it’s muffled by the vocals. “Tao, leave!” Huh. Must be FeiLong. 

_Words pointy like arrows_

_Wounds no one can see_

_He closed all the windows_

_As his anger broke free_

_I will not remember_

_You as somebody nice_

_Please will you remember me_

_And cry?_

“Akihito! Tell me 5 things you see!”

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

_He told me to walk away but I wouldn’t get far_

_Tell me how do people know what is life, what is love_

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

“Akihito! Listen to me. Feel my hand.”

_Hate followed him gently_

_Planted seeds in his heart_

_Roots tearing the love in him_

_Apart…_

Something is touching his palm. His fingers close over it. It’s warm.

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

_He told me to walk away but I wouldn’t get far_

_Tell me how do people know what is life, what is love_

_He told me I belong in a churchyard_

He feels Yoh’s quiet. He’s the eye of a storm. His pulse is strong, steadfast. In long minutes, the slow mist stops swirling around Akihito and instead forms a gate between his and Yoh’s hands. 

_I’ll die if I’m caged_ , Akihito confesses.

_I know,_ Yoh answers. _I’m sorry_. 

**

Akihito is asleep, dead to the world, exhausted by his own making. If not for his chest slowly moving up and down, he would make for a painting. His skin glows ethereal in the rays of the setting sun.

“FeiLong LaoBan. Are you alright?”

“Yes. I should ask you that, Yoh. Are you alright?”

A pause. “Yes, I am. Thank you for worrying about this lowly assistant.”

“Mn.” FeiLong inhales deeply. “He’s quite a creature. If I didn’t know better, I would say we’ve just witnessed a divine intervention.”

“FeiLong LaoBan, may I speak freely?”

A nod. “Go on.”

“When I held his hand, he told me with all certainty that he would die if he’s caged. But he didn’t say it.”

“Just like the song, then. What are your thoughts on that?”

“Yes. I didn't hear the song but felt it. It wasn’t in any language I know, but I understood it anyway. If I may, FeiLong-sama.” A breath. “I think Takaba Akihito is indeed an angel.”

“How troublesome. I do have your confidence that this stays between you and me, Yoh?”

“Of course, Fei LaoBan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Churchyard by Aurora  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o58hKXhQLtA
> 
> “Churchyard” is just like the concept of someone bigger using their power in the wrong way, that happens all the time in politics, with children, women. I wanted the songs to feel empowering - like at the end of “Churchyard”, she comes back to haunt him.  
> -The Independent (September 2016)  
> https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/aurora-interview-singer-new-album-infections-of-a-different-kind-release-date-tour-a8534271.html
> 
> If you’re wondering about the title, it goes back to this panel: 
> 
> Source: Finder Volume 1 Chapter 2, Fixer  
> https://mangadex.org/chapter/549388/32


	9. What the Hell is Going On with my Body and Other Common Puberty Questions

FeiLong shakes him awake and passes him a glass of water. “Drink.”

Akihito eyes him suspiciously through bearly eyes, but takes the water nonetheless. “Thanks.” 

“Be ready for lunch with me here in 15 minutes.”

“Where’s Yoh?”

“He’ll be here.”

**

It’s practically as silent as a catacomb as Tao wheels in plate after plate of dianxin. Akihito fidgets in his seat. He’s been drinking cup after cup of tea, well on his way on becoming tea drunk. 

The blond giggles under his breath. “Tiny…” He wriggles a finger to the direction of the dimsum. Above his head, FeiLong and Yoh pass each other disbelieving looks. 

As soon as FeiLong takes a bite, Akihito’s hand snakes out to grab a longbao. 

Yoh grasps his elbow. “Slow. You haven’t eaten in 5 days.”

Tao shoots Akihito dirty looks but obediently leaves once he’s filled the teapot again. The blond pays the child no mind, captivated by the promise of food. 

Yoh’s right. The first bite was heavenly, opening a hunger he didn’t know he had. It was hard to slow down, but he’s glad he’s only swallowed a few times because the longbao and tea are making a reappearance just a few minutes later. 

A hand rubs his back as he continues to dry heave over the toilet. He doesn’t turn to see who. He doubts he can tell who it is through his tears, anyway. “It’s alright. Shhh.” Yoh.

He wants to shake off the hand. He’s been kidnapped. He should hate them. But it takes too much energy to reject the meagre comfort after throwing up and the traumatising week. He just huddles next to the sink, leaning his head on the wood and catching his breath. 

“Asami wants you back.” FeiLong interjects out of nowhere.

“A-asami?”

“He was more insistent after I sent him a clip of your ass being spanked raw.”

“You-you feminine man!” Akihito thought he had no more pride. Well, just now, the last of his pride has been eroded. And when had FeiLong recorded them? The thought of being videotaped without him knowing feels like a violation. What else have they done with him none the wiser?

“I suppose you are something to him, after all.”

Yoh keeps rubbing his back. It grounds him back to his senses. “But I don’t suppose I’ll be going back, am I?”

“It depends on how well you behave. Be a good boy, and we’ll see. You can start by drinking the soup.” He motions to a bowl of congee back at the table. 

So it was a no, then. Of course, who is he kidding? He’s shown too many of his abilities. He’s made himself too interesting. 

But Akihito rises, rinses his mouth, and hobbles to his seat anyway. Yoh trails after him like the mother hen he is. 

He swallows the congee, even though he’s not hungry. “Thank you for the food.”

“You’re mine.” FeiLong states as if it’s a suitable explanation. The man ruffles a hand through his blond locks. “Curious. I’ve never seen a natural born Japanese with blond hair.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve always been this way.” The photographer stares at FeiLong, daring him to say anything more.

“Hm.” Fei passes him a small metal canister held in plastic. “An inhaler. For your asthma. If there’s anything else you need, ask Yoh.”

Akihito’s taken aback. “What if I need sex?” He challenges.

“Then ask Yoh. He’ll either bring you to me or do it himself.”

**

He shifts his foot, stretching his legs. Besides the walk to the sunroom a few days ago, he hasn’t moved much. All he can think about is how infantilizing FeiLong and Yoh always treat him. Like he can’t even think for himself. Like he’s not a person. 

“Yoh?”

The man nods in his direction. 

“Why did FeiLong punish me?”

A sigh. “You betrayed him.”

That doesn’t make sense. Akihito told the truth. “But I didn’t.”

“You told him that the CD was in your apartment. It wasn’t. You lied to him. The punishment for betrayal is torture then death.”

Akihito inhales sharply. “But I’m not dead. Will I be?”

“You’re a child. You don’t know any better.”

Was his youth the only thing that saved him from a demise? He’d been bristling at the way they’ve been emphasizing his naivety, but maybe he should be dialing the trait up instead. If anything, they’ve been amused with how childish he is. He must seem like a kid, to seasoned mafia men like them. 

But he’s not innocent. He’s killed. He’s taken. Wait. He’s taken from Yoh three times in the course of a day, some time ago. Or was it in the course of two days? How in the world is he not dead already?

Akihito tugs on Yoh’s sleeve. “Are you feeling tired? Faint?”

The bodyguard’s lips quirk up. “Not particularly. I’m feeling as expected.”

“As expected?”

“As of last week, FeiLong LaoBan has made headquarters a no-smoking zone. I am feeling as expected from nicotine withdrawal.”

“Don’t you feel fatigued when I,” Akihito flaps his hands around, “you know?”

“When you give me pleasure?” Yoh’s eyes twinkle. 

“Arg! Yes.”

“I do, Takaba-san, but I am capable of stopping you when I deem it enough.”

“So you’ll stop me if you’re feeling tired. You’ll promise to, right?”

“If that’s what you need, then I give you my word, Takaba-san.”

He snorts. “What I need is to be held down and fucked, and yesterday.” Akihito glances up, but Yoh has no reaction other than vague amusement. 

“Then I’ll be taking you to FeiLong LaoBan. Please give me your ankle.”

“What? That was a joke! I didn’t mean it!”

“Joke or not, your health is my responsibility, Takaba-san. Especially when your delicate constitution requires... special needs. Next time, if you need something, please tell me immediately, no matter how minor. Your ankle, _now_.”

Delicate constitution his ass! He’s the kidnapping victim here. If anyone’s that being inconvenienced, it’s him!

**

10 minutes later has him bundled up in a light jacket and soft pants, trailing behind Yoh through the maze-like halls of the BaiShe headquarters. “I really was kidding, Yoh. I don’t need to be…”

“Held down and fucked?”

Akihito winces. “Well, no, but yes?” He hasn’t fed since his disney princess meltdown. Eurg. Meltdown makes it seem like he’s a toddler. The point is, he’s never gone so long without taking except for the first few weeks after he’s fled his hometown, a boy lost in Tokyo. Yes, he’s better at controlling his hunger, but it doesn’t mean it's easier to bear.

“If you are in need of emergency _energy_ , I will be remiss in not offering it now.” So they do know he’s taking energy. 

“ _Here and now_? We’re in the hallway!” The blue-eyed boy hisses.

“Don’t be worried about the others. They are all sworn to secrecy. Besides, it’s nothing they haven’t seen or heard before.”

At that reminder, Akihito blushes. “We’re going to Fei’s room!”

“As you say, Takaba-san.” Yoh demurs as if that wasn’t what he was planning all along.

What a bastard!

**

“Oh ho, so that’s what you need?” FeiLong smirks, closing a folder and putting down his pen. He reclines in his chair and positions his feet up on his desk, with an expression of supreme delight until it slips back into distant amusement. “It’ll be my pleasure, little bird. But first, you have to beg nicely.”

“What? No! I’ll rather starve, you old man!”

“Well, it’s good that you’re not throwing up food anymore. But how’s touch starvation treating you? You think you can go much longer? Your shaking hands, your lightheadedness, the bruises not healing… the constant gnawing hunger, when food is right in front of you? When all you have to do to stop it is to say _please_?”

“Like you’ll know! I’m doing quite fine, for your information.”

“So fainting while taking a shower is fine? Just like how becoming so weak you can’t walk more than a few meters without catching your breath is fine?”

“How- Yoh?!” Akihito should have expected it. Yoh might be becoming one of his only friends in this place, but it doesn’t mean the blond should trust him. Even though he knows this, it doesn’t assuage the sharp pang of betrayal. 

“My, my. You really do need to be looked after. You don’t even know how to take care of yourself.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“Well, then prove it. It just takes one word, and then you’ll be feeling a lot better. How much longer, I wonder, can you go on like this? Another day or two? Another week? It’s all the better, anyway. Soon enough, you won’t have enough strength to run.”

FeiLong’s right, Akihito realises. Soon enough, he won’t have the energy to run. It’s his one advantage, the one thing he knows how to do. If he loses that, he might as well sign away his life to these mafia people.

Suddenly, he can’t stand to look at FeiLong’s face anymore. “P-please,” Akihito whispers, so quiet he almost thinks FeiLong doesn’t hear it.

But then, “Good boy. Come here.” And FeiLong clears his desk with a sweeping hand. The documents and pens and folders sprawl to the floor. 

The blue-eyed boy steps, unsteadily, towards the bureau. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

The long-haired man grasps the blond’s wrist and tugs him over and onto the desk. He topples into the man, catching himself with his free hand. “Because you’re mine. And this?” FeiLong unbuttons Akihito’s jacket and top, sliding them off his shoulders as he keeps an uncompromising grip on his wrist. “It’s simply because I take care of what’s mine.”

“But I don’t have the CD. Why did you punish me? Why do you still keep me?” The tease of FeiLong’s fingers over his clothes and sliding over his hips awakens a voraciousness trapped in the box he’s been struggling to control. His silks, still warm from his body heat, fall to the floor like feathers landing on water. Like Pandora’s box, the things inside fight to fly free. But here, they fly towards FeiLong’s riptides undershore, his deadly sweet scent of burnt plastic, his gentle fall of twilight. 

“You’re right. You didn’t have the CD. By all means I should have killed you. Cleaned up loose ends, took out the trash. But you, Akihito. You’re born with a different kind of value. Something that earthly matters cannot touch. It’s what Asami recognized too, I suppose.” The casual confirmation shivers icy numbness down Akihito’s spine. “You had to pay for your impertinence. For your audacity to lie to your master. But you are still yet a child. And children learn.”

Hands stroke at his collared neck, his legs, his chest. He’s naked, while FeiLong just has his top off, caging him in. The crime boss’ scar shines white in the sunlight. He inhales, tasting the sexual tension intensifying in the air, wetting his appetite. “I-”

“Asking for permission? How polite. Go on, eat. You’ve earned it.” A pause. “You won’t hurt me.”

And FeiLong captures his mouth with his, devouring any other words whole. Is that a tongue? “Mnngh!” Gold dust swirls and rises, gleaming around Akihito. He savours the taste of ozone want and the salt of strong undercurrents pulling down lost souls. He grinds down on what skin he can feel, entangles his legs around the broad back, clings his arms tightly to the crime boss’ neck and shoulders. He sucks deeply, inhaling gold through his skin and mouth and soul. 

The larger man closes his eyes. “That’s it, Akihito. Keep going.”

He does. For the first time in days, he feels alive. He’s filling with energy, each mouthful completing something deep inside him faster than the last. He’s a well with no bottom, a gaping maw creaking open and open and open. 

He’s pushed down, pinned to the hard wood of the desk by a solid weight on the small of his back. Fingers brush at his cheek, and he nuzzles his lips to the digits, automatically sucking at them. FeiLong chuckles. He feels a hand traveling down to his hips. It's wet, probing at something. “What are you doing?” He groggily murmurs, shaking himself out of his trance. 

“Ah, so you’ve never done anything like this? So innocent, little kitten. You didn’t know what you were asking for, did you when you said you needed to be held down and fucked?” And a finger breaches inside him, to the knuckle, searching for something. What the hell-

“Stop! I don’t want it!” The fingers hit something _itchy_ inside him, and the air is punched out of his lungs. “Hnng-!” But then he catches his breath and realises that he’s eating faster than he’s ever eaten before. There’s so much more energy he can take, now, even though he’s touching less skin. It’s like he’s been filling a sink with a faucet and now he’s filling it with a hose. The gold around him is yanked back inside him and then billows out, sending paper and curtains and the discarded clothes afly in a miniature vortex of wind. Something inside his shoulders and down his back thrashes. “Please-!”

FeiLong’s fingers don’t stop the constant _jab jab jab_ to his sweet spot. Pleasure builds through his pelvis, slow and maddening. Something is sliding out of the back of his shoulders. It’s too much. He can’t- he wants it to stop, it’s too frightening. But it’s so good.

And then-he shudders, white dribbling out of his tip, the pleasure cresting and staying high while the boss massages his prostate until he’s crying, overstimulated and dry. He feels..wings burst out and twitch beneath him, the ends touching resting on the floor on both sides of the desk. 

Akihito blinks away his tears and slowly rolls his head to the side. Yes, he’s not hallucinating. He has goddamn wings, fluttering in time with the aftershocks of his orgasm. They’re huge, together spanning around twice his height. The white downy baby feathers quiver in the cool air, sensitive and new. 

_Owww_. 

A hand runs through his flight feathers. His wings jerk then relax into the gentle touches. He’s satiated and warm and lazy, basking in the afternoon sun. Soft fingers lull him. 

Distantly, he feels hands dressing him back in his silks and lifting him, careful of his wings. He nuzzles into the safety of the warm neck, drifting off as Yoh carries him back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon for incubi: Incubi are creatures who slip into houses at night to prey on sleeping people. They need to sneak into houses for their victims, so of course they are flexible, nimble on their feet, and above all, can move quietly. The ideal situation for incubi is that they slip into a bedroom, take the sexual and life energy of their victim, and leave the house for another victim before they wake. The next day, the victim has no idea what happened, except that they had a wet dream. 
> 
> Of course, to hit multiple victims at once, incubi have to travel a lot. Running is an option, but it’s not a very efficient option when you have to traverse through miles of fields for each house. So flying is a better option. It doesn’t matter how much energy having wings take when you can easily prey on more people and gather more energy. The wings are modeled off of owl wings (my otp night flight gang), infamous for their silence. 
> 
> The ability to fly however makes it necessary that incubi have hollow hybrid bones and weight less than regular humans. Bird bones are incredibly dense, stiff, and strong. Due to their density, they are slimmer and shaped rounder. Due to their inside structure, when they break, they shatter. However, they also heal faster than human bones. So it doesn't really matter if the incubus breaks a bone, as long as they can feed and heal themselves. 
> 
> If you want to hear more about my incubus headcanon and research, DM me or reach out in the comments! I can promise it features spicy diary entries from priests.


	10. Clipped Wings Cannot Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has to go home. He doesn’t know the language, doesn’t have money, doesn’t know anything about getting around in this country. But even if he can’t fly, he can still swim. He won’t die. If he does die, it will be better to die of his own will than to die at the hands of FeiLong.

It’s four days later in the middle of feeding from Yoh that Akihito figures how to make his wings disappear. It’s like a lock. You twist one way to slide the deadbolt out, and the other way to slide it back in the door. You just have to have the key.

“That’s enough, Akihito.” Yoh gently pats the blond’s head and pushes him away. The gold fades at the loss. Akihito groans and nudges his nose at the man’s neck. “No, I said that’s enough.”

“Fine, you stingy fuddy buddy.” 

The blond pouts, but Yoh only ruffles his hair. “Get up, we’re going on a walk.”

“Yes! Finally!” He’s not been allowed outside the room until he could keep his wings under control after he’s bowled down cups and paintings and even Yoh a few times when he got excited. He’s tripped over his own wings and hit himself upside the head once. That was a doozy. It’s like his wings have a mind of their own.

Yoh unclips the chain and Akihito bounces on his toes, ready to actually get out of this room. “Don’t stray too far. Everyone in the organisation is pretty irritated.”

“Why?”

Yoh grunts. “Something important is missing.”

Akihito casts back the CD. The CD was important, and the punishment for it was so terrible he’s still terrified thinking of it. What’s going to happen now?

**

Yoh’s right. The men walk urgently across the halls with a kind of jittery attention. He can’t help but feel like something’s wrong. The anxiety is starting to permeate through the walls, bleeding into the foundation of the building. 

The unease burrows into his gut. A hand clamps down on his shoulder. It’s Yoh. 

“You were sparkling.”

Oh. Akihito twists the energy back inside. “Sorry.”

Yoh nods. 

Someone’s watching him. The blond scans the corridor. There’s a tall, imposing man glaring at him. The blue-eyed boy feels his heart stop in its tracks, like prey the moment before the chase. The man has blond hair too and he’s built, almost 4 times larger than Akihito by girth alone. 

Yoh prods him to move along. 

“W-who?” Akihito whispers, still not taking his eyes off of the man who feels like an imposter. A cuckoo. 

“Some important foreign VIPs are visiting. They’ll be leaving soon.”

“Is this related to the missing thing?”

Yoh doesn’t answer. 

Suddenly, the man lunges forward, towards Akihito. The boy leaps up and runs as hard as he can, panicking. 

“Akihito!”

He doesn’t know where he’s running, but away. He dodges through corners and over suited men. He hears the thundering of footsteps behind him, but he doesn’t know if it’s the cuckoo man or Yoh, so he runs harder. He doesn’t dare look back.

He bursts through a few flights of stairs and a door, and in an instant, he’s outside, his breath crystalizing in front of his face. The smell of street grime, car exhaust, the sounds of engines and street hawkers and so many heartbeats blasts into him, and he stumbles into the alleyway. The pavement is covered in a light dusting of snow.

A man in a suit grabs him by the wrist and yells something at him. He can’t understand. They’re talking in a circle around him. He looks up only to be backhanded and thrown to the ground. He collides into a trash can, sending them both sprawling. His fingers are freezing, the snow not cushioning his landing at all.

Akihito bites his cheek, not willing to make a noise. He feels energy waft up to his injuries. He spits blood up at their faces and winds his fist into a punch. Astonishingly, the punch lands. 

The men yell at him, spittle flying. They grab one arm each and he’s sucker punched. The blond can’t breathe, but he launches a kick anyway.

Bad idea. The man grabs a gun from inside his suit and clicks the safety off. 

Heart in his throat, the blond crosses his arms in front of his face, willing his wings to come out to shield him. They don’t.

But the men back off anyway, pointing to his wrist. What? Oh. His long sleeves slid down to expose the ouroboros tattoo. In their shock, he bolts into the marketplace, ignoring their cries.

**

Akihito’s been dodging Yoh for the better part of 20 minutes, crouching under tables and crossing streets until he’s more than a few blocks. He doesn’t understand anything here- not the people, the signs, or the streets. The salty moistness clinging to the air guilds him further and further away from the hubbub of people, until there’s nobody else but him. 

It’s the sea. There are chunks of ice being carried away by the currents, drifting snow melting into the water. 

Homesickness explodes in his chest, so powerful he has to hang onto the railing to stay standing. What has he been doing, playing pet? He hasn’t even tried to escape. The people at home have probably been searching for him, and here he is, painting nails with murderers. 

He has to go home. He doesn’t know the language, doesn’t have money, doesn’t know anything about getting around in this country. But even if he can’t fly, he can still swim. He won’t die. If he does die, it will be better to die of his own will than to die at the hands of FeiLong.

Determination flows freely through his veins. The sea calls* to him, the current pushing. 

_ With a tiny rope and a bag of stone _

_ And all heartbroken wishing bone _

_ She's going in, she's going home _

_ Oh this little golden knight, fighting every day _

_ Behind the light, behind the light _

Chunks of ice collide and break and bobble up and down, down, down to the horizon. It’s mesmerizing, and he stares at them for a long moment.

_ Walking faster down the street _

_ Red eyes and no shoes on her feet _

_ Going on this journey, determined to complete _

_ This is farewell, this is goodnight _

_ The last time she will see the daylight _

_ See the daylight _

Akihito lifts himself up so he’s standing on the railing. He looks down to the water, breathing in.

_ And she's going on a journey _

_ Always walking down the road _

_ And the water is always calling _

_ "My little child, please come home" _

The wind chills his skin. His nose and fingertips are turning blue, but he doesn’t notice.

_ That's when she went away _

_ Away from the light of day _

_ Standing by the riverside _

_ Patiently waiting for the tide _

_ To come along, to come along _

_ The waters going through her feet _

_ And on her body wind so cold and sweet _

_ So cold and sweet _

_ And she's going on a journey _

_ Always walking down the road _

_ And the water is always calling _

_ "My little child, please come home" _

_ And the stars were brightly shining _

_ When she reached out they were gone _

_ And the water started calling _

_ "My little child, please come home" _

Akihito lifts one hand from the railing, then another. Only his feet hold him to the earth now. 

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

_ Feel the water in her body, water's never going out _

He leans forward, holding out his arms to catch the wind. He’s tipping forwards, towards the water. 

_ And she's going on a journey _

_ Always walking down the road _

_ And the water is always calling _

_ "My little child, please come home" _

_ And the stars were brightly shining _

_ When she reached out they were gone _

_ And the water started calling _

_ "My little child, please come home" _

_ When a shiny light hit her eye _

_ And she turned around and climbed _

_ Towards the sky _

_ Towards the sky... _

And he’s caught by his jacket collar, dangling like a scuffed puppy. Yoh hauls him over the railing and back onto solid ground.

“Get in the car.”

Akihito squirms and sends fists and feet flying, trying to get a hit in. It’s useless. 

“Put me down! I can’t go back!” Yoh casually handcuffs him and drags him into a black car. “Please! I can’t be caged again!”

He’s sick and tired of being treated like an animal. He just wants to go back home. He’ll rather die than stay as a pet a moment longer, fearing his every step, being hurt and almost killed every time he turns around. 

Yoh says nothing and slams the door shut. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Awakening by Aurora  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_tvtAdjvwk
> 
> The bay is Kowloon bay, famous for it’s horizon line of skyscrapers. If you want to swim to Japan via Hong Kong, you would need to swim across Kowloon bay, traverse across Taiwan, and then swim across the East China Sea. For comparison’s sake, it takes four and a half hours for a flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo. To be fair, though, Akihito is an incubus, so the chance of him making it is not nonexistent. 
> 
> I was lazy and said Kowloon bay but there’s 8 bays in Kowloon lmao I just mean the Kowloon bay (like the name is actually Kowloon Bay) if you know what I mean.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bays_in_Hong_Kong


	11. Don’t Be So Serious

“You’ll be punished,” Yoh states like it’s a fact, yanking him back across HQ. 

“I’m ready for whatever FeiLong does. It doesn’t matter whether I live or die. I’ll still be a bird in a cage.”

Yoh jerks him forward with less force. “It’s not FeiLong you should be worried about.”

“What do you mean?” A moment passes. Unnervingly, there’s nobody in the halls except for them. 

“You escaped under my supervision. You’re my responsibility. I’ll be punishing you.”

Akihito’s breath stutters. No. To have the only person he can vaguely call a friend to punish him- that’s betrayal. But Akihito knows that Yoh has to do it. He has no choice; he’s forced Yoh’s hand. 

“I’m sorry,” the blond breathes.

Yoh sighs. “Yes, you will be.”

A frazzled looking guy waves at the duo. “Yoh. The boss is waiting upstairs.”

**

FeiLong’s office is filled to the brim with nervous men. Sitting langously in the center lies the BaiShe leader himself. 

“Yoh. Please show me your hands.”

Yoh unhands Akihito to stand in front of FeiLong, glaring a threat to behave as he walks forward. The boss shines a UV light on his palms. “It’s not you.” 

Yoh kneels to kiss FeiLong’s hands. “I am loyal to you, boss.”

Akihito’s sixth sense perks up. 

Scanning the crowd, the blond spots a man nervously fingering something under his suit. It’s vaguely oblong and black. With a jolt, he realises it’s a gun. Probably everyone in here is concealing a gun. 

_Everyone but Akihito._

Why is the man nervous, though? If he’s innocent, he has nothing to worry about. Unless he isn’t.

A line forms for FeiLong to check each pair of hands. Man after man passes until one is tackled to the ground. 

Like in slow motion, the blond watches as the nervous man unlocks the safety and pulls out the gun. He’s aiming for FeiLong.

Akihito’s feet carry him forward, as if on autopilot, to knock the gun out of the man’s hands. He’s kicked to the floor, pain blossoming brightly at his ribs and fingers and hip and shoulder as he lands sideways, hands cuffed. 

_Pop pop pop pop._

His yelp of pain is so piercing a few mobsters move to cover their ears, just in time for Yoh to shoot the man dead.

A spray of blood showers the blond. The man falls, blood pooling below his body as the seconds tick. The man’s eyes are still open, glazing at Akihito. For a moment, Akihito swears the lights turn fluorescent and flickering, that the wind is blowing, that the ground is pavement. 

He blinks, and the image disappears. The pain is so thick he’s nauseous. 

What did he just do? 

**

“I’m sorry.” Akihito breathes. Yoh has a hand on his elbow as they walk to FeiLong’s bedroom. Every step hurts from the stomp, even though he’s high as a kite on painkillers. He’s sure he’s bruising all over. 

Yoh scrunches his eyebrows and then heaves out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to punish you now. You need to eat first.” 

Yoh thinks he’s trying to get out of his punishment even after he almost got shot? And he’s still getting punished? Akihito can’t understand. It must be the shock or sheer disbelief. He wasn't talking about that-

FeiLong hums. “Did you try to run away? You must know, I do not tolerate those who betray me.”

“Leaving is betraying you? In what world does that make sense?” 

“In my world. Here, my word is law. And you, little kitten, have been running amok right and left. You need to be disciplined.”

“My ribs are shattered! Doesn’t that count as discipline enough? And how about what happened in that room?” 

“Hm. What do you think, Yoh?”

“Half.” What the hell is happening? He almost died!

“Very well. For your foolhardy actions, your punishment is halved. Since you’re so eager for a repeat performance, I suppose I can do it.”

Repeat performance?! Never mind that, he’s here and he can’t wrap his head around the fact that a shootout almost happened in front of his eyes. And yet they’re brushing it off like it’s an everyday occurrence. Although, to them, it might as well be. The blond can still see those eyes staring straight at him and out of the corner of his eyes sometimes, spooking him when there’s nothing there.

But...Akihito can't really remember his last punishment, but he knows he barely made it through. Deep inside, though, he’s glad FeiLong is the one doing it, and not Yoh. He doesn’t want to ruin the image of gruff, dependable Yoh. He knows they’re all killers. This afternoon showed how callously they can end a life. But Akihito still wants his friend. 

“Undress, Akihito.” FeiLong tugs open his tie and dress shirt, revealing smooth skin as he tosses the blond on the bed.

“Where’s your scar?”

“You don’t remember? You healed it, little bird.” FeiLong smirks. “There’s not even a trace left. Did you know, Asami killed my father and my brother. He betrayed them. Then he tried to kill me.”

Can he heal other people? He knows that he can heal himself, but this is just too much. 

FeiLong hooks his fingers on the elastic of the pants and lifts Akihito off the bed as he slides them down, underwear and all. “Whoa, whoa!” Exclaims the blond as his top is tugged off. 

“Good.” FeiLong murmurs. “Don’t move, now. We don’t want to jostle those ribs too much.”

“It might have been Asami who gave you that scar, but you’re the one still holding onto the past, FeiLong. You’re the one who keeps it a scar!”

“It’s not as simple as that.” FeiLong cages him in, trapping both of the blond’s wrists above his head. “Nothing is ever simple.”

“It sounds like you’re making it complicated. Asami betrayed you, but then why are still clinging onto him? It seems like you make your life revolve around him when he’s not even here! I bet you’re only keeping me here because Asami wants me! Stop fooling yourself!”

FeiLong eyes Akihito in surprise, and then guffaws. “You’re different from what I expected, little kitten.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? That I don’t roll over and show you my belly? That I won’t mindlessly obey you? Well, fuck you! It’s called being a person, having human rights! And for the record, I’m _not anyone’s pet_!” Akihito’s eyes blaze with indignation. 

“Aren’t you? I seem to be misremembering then, of how you begged me so sweetly to take your first time.”

“That’s because you made me! You’re an utter fool if you think you can own me. You’re so hypocritical. You talk about how I’m your pet, when you’re still Asami’s pet all along, clinging to your past!”

The room is quiet save for Akihito’s panting. 

“You can free yourself, so why don’t you? If you really cared about your dad and brother dying, then you would go and search for answers and settle this once and for all!”

“Don’t you dare insinuate that-”

“If you were my friend, I would punch you by now!” Tears drip, unbidden, to the edges of his temple and onto the bedspread. 

FeiLong brushes a finger over the wetness. “You would cry for me?”

“Why, when all you do is cage me and hurt me? I hate it.” Akihito whispers. He would wipe his tears, but his hands are captured so he rubs his face into the comforter. 

“Look at me, Akihito.” The boss tips the blond’s chin. “Don’t you dare assume that I didn’t care for my father and brother. But perhaps there is something you said that is worth considering.”

The blond tries to slide his hands from the loosening grip, but the FeiLong’s hold tightens. 

“Be a good boy and stay still. You can do that, right?” The man skims over the incubus’ chest, tweaking a nipple.

“Ah! What-”

“Such a lewd body. You don’t even know it, do you?” The blond shakes his head in denial, but it makes no difference. “Eat, Akihito. Don’t be afraid. You’re made for this, after all.”

“FeiLong…” 

The man sucks on his fingers, drool tracking down to his wrist and dripping onto Akihito’s belly. And then FeiLong plunges the digits inside the blond, jamming them straight down to the last knuckle. 

“Mngfh!” It hurts, but then Akihito remembers that he can drink. He pulls golden ichor deeply into his body. Like magic, the pain from his injuries dissipate, little by little as FeiLong probes inside him, adding fingers. 

It’s scary, but the blond is too distracted to mind. The more inside him, the stronger he can drink. The haze from his painkillers is replaced by the haze of feasting and being rebuilt, atom by atom, into something cleaner and _more_ than he was before. He can’t see beyond FeiLong, beyond the scintillating gold cocooning them both. 

And something bigger than fingers breeches him. His wings unfurl as he chokes in shock. It’s too much. 

“Take it out, take it out! It hurts!” 

“Shhh.” FeiLong caresses his hair and starts moving. It hits the same spot deep inside him that the fingers did. He’s vibrating out of his skin, the gold around them sparking little jolts of electricity. He feels like a supercharging battery. 

His wings flutter, creating air currents. He can’t hear anything other than the rush of a riptide pulling him under. He breathes in ozone and plastic smoke and sweet sweet poison. 

And then FeiLong pulls out. 

“That’s quite enough, isn’t it?” The boss strokes his feathers, and then fists them under his hand. Akihito screams, in a primal way he didn’t know he could. It feels _wrongwrongwrong_ , but the BaiShe leader doesn’t even bat an eyelash. Instead, he’s pinned face down by his wings, like a butterfly to a corkboard. He can’t move unless he wants to tear his feathers out. 

Akihito’s still screaming. He can’t stop. “Yoh, hold him.” The blond’s muscles twitch and spasm, but he holds still. FeiLong’s hands are replaced by Yoh’s warm ones but they’re no less painful and _wrong_. 

Far away, he hears the clinking of a belt. “No. No, no no no no. Please, I’m sorry!” The blond sputters in between screams. He’s terrified. 

“Hm. It smells like tea in here. How nice.” And then, “Akihito, count.”

There’s no warning. It’s just a whistle through the air, and then pain hits him like a train. For a second, everything is quiet. And then Akihito screams, shrill and high and seemingly forever. The pain from before was just play. Now, it’s so intense he can’t think. He’s shaking so hard it _hurts_. The grip on his wings tightens, the violation from the touch burrowing deeper and deeper into his skin and muscles and bones. 

He’s afraid he can never unfeel it. 

Akihito hears another snap behind him. Another ear-piercing shriek is punched out of him, choking into gasping sobs. He knows the pain’s only starting, but can’t even feel his lower half or wings anymore. Everything starts feeling more numb and distant, and Akihito welcomes it, letting it envelop him little by little. Akihito thinks it’s his saving grace, and he can’t help but run full force into it. 

The belt whistles again. “I said, count.” And he’s thrust back into the world. The pain shocks him, stealing his breath. Try as he might, Akihito can’t count. He’s hyperventilating so bad he can’t even inhale. All he can seem to do is scream and sputter and tremble like he’s seizing. His face is wet and he can’t see beyond his nose.

FeiLong belts him again and again, leaving no time to rest. His wings and body convulse. All he can hear is the blood rushing through his head and never-ending wailing. Black spots dot his vision. Nothing exists in the world but pain and _wrongness_ and him. The right decision was running away, right? He can take care of himself. He’s supposed to be self-sufficient. He’s old enough to look after his own hide. He can’t rely on anyone but himself, after all. He can’t endanger others. 

But looking after himself got him into this trouble in the first place. Looking after himself made him into a killer, into abandoning all his friends and family, into stalking the nightlife for criminals. Once FeiLong took him in, he hasn’t killed anyone. They didn’t let him. They gave him a choice to be _good_ again. 

Akihito is capable of taking care of himself. He just might need help, sometimes. And there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with it at all. Everyone needs help sometimes, right? So maybe FeiLong knows what he’s doing. Maybe he does need help taking care of himself, just for a little while. It doesn’t make it okay that FeiLong cages him, though. 

But does it? If he’s stuck here, then he doesn’t have the opportunity to kill people outside or expose himself. It’s a win-win. His heart rankles. He needs freedom like he needs air, but maybe he has to be caged for a little bit. Just until he learns how to not hurt others. Just a little bit. Just bear it and grin. He needs to learn to swallow down the disgust from his own body. It’s what his body’s made for, after all. He just needs to learn how to get used to it. FeiLong’s helping him learn how to get used to it.

And he’s not been good all the time either. His tantrums; ripping off the bell, denying FeiLong, running away- he acts like a child. God, he can’t even be trusted to remember to take his inhaler with him, either. Yoh has to bring it along. He’s irresponsible, immature, too naïve by far. It’s no wonder they treat him as a child: a silly little boy. What else can they do? After all, he doesn’t even know how to take care of himself. It’s for his own good. 

Wasn’t it just earlier today that he would rather die than be caged again? Looking back on it, it’s a bit silly. FeiLong wasn’t doing anything too bad, not really. It’s just that Akihito didn’t understand. 

Ice shudders down his spine, even through the fire roaring through his body by the hands and belt and his own stubbornness. No. How can he ever think this? It’s hard, but Akihito musters up his anger, shoves his hurts into the light. He can’t think like this. It’s FeiLong who’s in the wrong. He’s the one that’s kidnapped him, stolen him from his home, caged him and collared him and dressed him up like a doll every day. It’s him who’s hurting Akihito right now. It’s FeiLong who’s belting him until he’ll puke any second, it’s FeiLong who ordered Yoh to string him up by his wings. 

But is it really better for him to be free? Back in Tokyo, he was leaving bodies left and right. Yes, he’s going to learn control over time. But is freedom worth the price of the lives of so many other people? How many more people would he have had to kill to learn what he’s learned here, in Hong Kong, under FeiLong’s hand?

Akihito doesn’t know. And that’s what scares him the most, in the part that is still somehow thinking through the pain that _comes_ and _comes_ and _comes_. The pain never stops. Everything hurts. He’s scared and screaming and he still can’t breathe. He’s going to die. He’s going to die, but it’s okay. He said he’ll rather die than be caged again, right? So it’s okay. Everything’s okay. It doesn’t matter if he breathes or not, or if the screaming in the distance stops or not; not if Feilong stops belting him, not if Yoh stops holding him down. If he dies, it’s alright. It’s what he wanted, after all. 

And through the pain, the convulsing, the forever screaming, Akihito smiles. 

Everything’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unlike in mainland China, gambling in Macau is legal (in fact, it’s the only place in China where casinos are legal). Gambling has been legal since 1849, when Macau was a Portuguese colony and the government wanted money. Macau is comparable to Las Vegas, but has in fact exceeded earnings compared to Las Vegas. It’s considered the gambling capital of the world, or the Monte Carlo of the Orient.
> 
> Lol for realz tho gambling is over 40% of Macau’s GDP.
> 
> You can see how losing a deed to a Macau casino can set the entire BaiShe in disarray and make other leaders interested in getting a taste for themselves.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_in_Macau


	12. No Rest For the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Good boy, Akihito. It’s been a wonder to be with you. Remember to behave for me, alright?”
> 
> The blond nods and says nothing, just watching FeiLong as he’s carried out of the room and into an elevator.

“Time to wake up, little bird.” Soothing hands brush through his hair and plumage, smoothing down ruffled feathers. It’s comfortable.

Then the blare of pain hits him, and he’s jolting awake. There’s a soft ringing. He hisses, and he realises his throat is sandpaper, that the bell is back on the collar. His lower half hurts so much he can’t move. And not to say-

His wings. To his horror, some quills have snapped in half, dangling from the root. There’s ripped out down feathers, split shafts, brown blood dry and coagulated and stiff over his white wings. He’s queasy looking at it. 

Pitching forward, he throws up. The acid burns his throat coming up, and he’s hacking and heaving, the muscle contractions just making everything hurt more. 

Another hand rubs his back, keeps his hair out of his face. The sheets absorb the vomit, sinking into the fibres, running downhill where Akihito’s laying prone. 

“Isn’t that a nice wake up.” When the blond’s retching subsides, strong arms lift him up and carry him into the bathroom, careful of his hanging wings. He’s dipped into a warm bath. 

“FeiLong-”

“Shh, Akihito. You took it well. You won’t run away again, will you?” 

“No.” The blond closes his eyes. 

FeiLong washes him slowly and carefully, running over every inch of skin with a soft washcloth. “Asami’s willing to trade the deed for you. We’re going to board my cruise ship and once he hands it over, you’ll cross onto his.”

“Why did you punish me for running away when you’re just going to hand me over?” Akihito croaks into the water. It seems useless like there was no reason for the punishment. He feels betrayed. All that suffering, just to be traded off like that?

“You’re mine. Mine to keep, mine to discipline, mine to trade. You’ll do well to remember that.”

The blond doesn’t respond. Blood dissolves into the water, dyeing it red. Clumps of feathers float up as they are torn off, solidified by black masses of blood. He grins and bears it. Something inside him tells him that he has to tear out the broken feathers to heal again. 

“The deed was important to me, Akihito. It was stolen from under my nose, and I cannot bow knowingly to one who dares to take it. If I do that, I’ll lose respect. People will come and take all that I hold dear.”

“So that’s why you punish me. Respect.” Gears slowly turn in Akihito’s head, like he’s a computer starting up. “But you also need to leave a mark on me for Asami to see. That’s why-that’s why the bell is back, isn’t it.”

“Yes. He found you first, but you’re mine. I’m the one who trained you. Whenever he uses your body, your body will remember mine first.” Akihito shivers at the answer. 

“FeiLong… it’s uneven.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re not planning to let him walk away with me, are you?”

“If Asami does what he should, then nothing will happen.”

Then why… Why in the world did he have to go through all this pain? He wants to rant, to yell at him, to ask why. But he knows he shouldn’t. So he doesn’t.

The BaiShe leader lifts him out and towels him dry, pats his feathers down. Akihito takes in a breath, gathering courage. “Can… can you pluck out the broken ones?”

A pause. “Yes, of course.”

Somehow, in the course of his bath, the bed has been replaced. He’s lowered, stomach to the sheets. FeiLong sits beside him and leans over, grasping at feathers by the base. 

“Breathe, Akihito.” The blond gasps as something is torn from him. He bites down on his arm, face in the pillow to muffle himself. 

And it happens, again and again and again.

By the time FeiLong finishes, he feels like a plucked chicken ten times over, and he’s wheezing and crying again. The boss just dabbles at his tears and shushes him, rubbing his back. 

“It’s over, it’s over, you did good.” The blond knows it’s done, but he can’t seem to stop crying. “You did so good, you’re so good for me.” What is the use?

His wings still twitch. The feel of air on them is too much. The thought of moving them is out of the question. 

“Can you dress yourself?” Akihito shakes his head. FeiLong just slides underwear then pants then socks, rubbing circles onto his skin as he bites down cries. He can feel the heat coming off his skin. He probably has welts all over, if not open skin. 

“Your wings, can you make them disappear?” Tears in his eyes, Akihito shakes his head again. It’ll be too much. “That’s alright.” 

FeiLong motions someone to come over, and he’s being hoisted up and carried like a kid, his wings trailing to the floor on either side of him. He snuggles into the neck, but instead of calm and old books like he’s expecting, it’s wind on leaves, the howling hunger of wolves on full moons, the sharp essence of eucalyptus on a humid day. 

“Yoh?”

“He’s not here. Don’t worry, you’ll be alright.” But FeiLong’s wrong. He smells Yoh’s petrichor tinged with iron right here with him. Yoh’s looking after him.

Somehow, despite the pain, Akihito sways back into slumber.

**

He wakes again to being handed over to an unfamiliar man. The man takes him from the eucalyptus man, and Akihito makes a noise of discontent. 

  
“You awake, Akihito?” He readily opens his eyes. It’s FeiLong. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

“Wha-?”

“We’re on the cruise. Asami’s arrived. You’re going to go down the lobby. Once you get down, quickly board the small ship. These two men will escort you.”

“O-okay.” 

“Can you retract your wings now?” Akihito tries to move them, and surprisingly, they feel much better. They’re vaguely wet like someone’s spread healing salve on them. Did they treat him when he was asleep? He spots new tips poke through the bare skin where the old feathers were plucked off. And why didn’t he heal like he always does? Did he not have enough energy to heal? 

Now that he thinks about it, he didn’t heal during the punishment either… What’s wrong with him? Akihito’s sure he’s taken enough energy to heal at least partially, but he didn’t. There’s definitely plenty of energy bouncing inside of him, so why?

His sixth sense flutters awake, like a predator getting ready for a chase. Ah. Something big is coming. He needs to save the energy he has.

Something big is coming very, very soon. Breathing in, he now feels the anxiety permeating into the air. Everyone’s nervous. 

It takes a few tries, the muscles overtired and straining, but his wings retract back. He’s out of breath in the aftermath, and FeiLong pats his head. 

“Good boy, Akihito. It’s been a wonder to be with you. Remember to behave for me, alright?”

The blond nods and says nothing, just watching FeiLong as he’s carried out of the room and into an elevator. 

**

“Stay quiet until we get to the bottom.” The man holding him orders. The man’s hip pouch prods uncomfortably into his knee, and he nudges it. For a second, he thinks it’s a gun. But then he realises that it’s the inhaler FeiLong gave to him. 

Akihito fits his chin into the man’s neck. Through the glass pane of the elevator, Akihito spots Asami in the lobby along with his familiar bodyguards. Funny, how through the weeks, he can still recognize Asami on sight.

The two men are muttering in Chinese. He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t try to understand. He just stares at Asami as the elevator descends. 

His sixth sense tings. Out of the corner of his eye, man #2 whips out a gun and shoots the man carrying him dead.

With a cry of alarm, Akihito lands on the floor. The dead man collapses on him, pinning him to the floor, hot blood spurting onto his clothes. The incubus bites back his cry of pain and tries to crawl out from below the body as man #2 hits the fifth floor button. Once the doors slide open, he’s being dragged out into an empty hallway. 

“Let go of me!” The blond struggles to unbend the iron fingers over his wrist. “What are you doing?”

The man touches the still-hot gun to Akihito’s face. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you.”

And Akihito leans forward, out of the way of the gun, and slams a hand to the man’s throat, pressing lips to lips as he drinks as hard and fast as he can. It’s disgusting, the feel of slime on skin and clumpy milk. He’s gotten used to fuel that tastes good. But he drinks and desperately pulls gold and gropes for more and more contact. 

The man fights back, trying to pistol whip him, punch him, throw him off, but Akihito just grips harder and rolls them over and drinks even deeper. Inside him, he feels his wings heal and grow, deep tissue bruising clearing up, pain numbing as adrenaline takes over. 

A steel-toed boot knocks him off, and he scrambles, injuries instantly healing, trying to climb back on the man to finish him off. The man snarls, rocking forward, and chops a hard hand on Akihito’s neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hong Kong has tight regulations on casinos and gambling, especially since the 1977 Gambling Ordinance. Independent casinos can’t really operate on Hong Kong ground, as the government basically holds a monopoly on wagers. It’s lucrative for the government: enough so that gambling pays the largest amount of taxes. 
> 
> What is considered part of the country/territorial waters is also a border of 12 nautical miles (22 km) out of sea from it’s coast. So the common solution is to have casino ships that float out of the border into international waters and start gambling then. 
> 
> Nifty, right?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_in_Hong_Kong
> 
> This is back then. Canon is set around 2001? To 2010 max? Today, illegal gambling is all over China in new ways like proxy betting and online gambling. Two dollars on China cracking down on online gambling by 2027.


	13. Square 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s so close. Just a bit more. He tries two times to stand up and, step by dizzy step, wings dragging and smearing on the flooring, to nudge the handle open. The men let him, saying nothing, staying still, watching. Judging. Knowing. But the handle is locked. Try as he might, he can’t get it open without his hands.

Akihito’s sick and tired of waking up in unfamiliar situations, of being constantly scared, of not knowing what’s happening next. This time, he’s blindfolded and his arms are taped together, wrists to elbows. They’ve even slapped tape over his mouth. He’s laying on his side. The hum of the engine room is near and deep enough he knows nobody will come to this room if he screams.

The blond knows he’s probably not going home to Japan. His chances just got so much slimmer. But he has to endure. There’s still a chance to get out, to get free, and he’ll fight for that chance. 

There are men here, talking about him in a language he doesn’t know. It’s not Chinese, though, or Cantonese. It’s Polish? Russian maybe?

Still breathing even, he reaches out and tries to count the heartbeats. There are definitely five different ones, but beyond that, it gets so muddled he can’t keep track. The air dances with victory and satisfaction, a lioness content after a full meal, a cuckoo pushing their unborn siblings out of the nest. 

Someone walks forward and shakes his shoulder. He jolts, pretending to wake. He tries to rock to a sitting position, but his welts make him hiss. He grits his teeth and sits anyway.

The only word he recognizes is FeiLong’s name. His blindfold is untied, and he glares up at them. 

It’s a group of seven men. A few are openly carrying guns. There’s sour milk man… and he recognizes another one of them. It’s the cuckoo man who chased him at the BaiShe headquarters. His breath speeds up.

Do they know his secret?

The cuckoo man seems to recognize him back and says something to the man who undid his blindfold. Blindfold man says something back and sour milk man rips the tape off of his mouth. 

“Why did you betray Fei-” Sour milk man punches him squarely in the face, and he tries to calm the energy inside him. The bell cheerily jingles with the movement. 

He has to be in control, to not heal, to not show his unnaturalness.

The man grinds his heel on Akihito’s neck for long seconds. He chokes, gasping in air. Never would he think to be thankful for the metal ring around his neck. It’s probably the only thing protecting his windpipe from collapsing. 

A man in a leather jacket looks the blond in the eye and asks him a question, but he can’t understand. “Who the hell are you? What are you playing at?!”

Leather jacket man answers, but he doesn’t understand. With a gun under Akihito’s chin, the man heaves him up so he’s standing and opens his top. 

The 18 year old tries to break his arms free from the tape, but it holds strong. “Stop, you’re hurting me!” With no way to defend himself or dodge the gun, he can’t even hope to suck leather jacket man dry and hightail it out. Chances are, he’ll sooner get shot than out alive.

But leather jacket man doesn’t stop. Instead, the man slaps his behind. He bites out a shrill screech, staggering to the floor, the pain he’s ignoring coming back full force. Damn it, he should have healed himself earlier.

In the second he’s distracted, he finds himself face to the floor, ass up, and his pants are shoved down before he can rise up again.

He eyes the men. They’re all staring right at him. FeiLong said to behave. To be good. Was it for these men? Is he getting sold off to be hooked on drugs and fucked by sadistic old men for the rest of his life?

He can’t believe it. After everything… But the evidence is right in front of him. Just when he had a chance to go back to Japan, to home, the chance is snatched away. 

Is this what FeiLong planned? Is that why cuckoo man was staring at him days ago?

If that’s the case, then he doesn’t have to play fair. He suspects that sour milk man has told everyone about his energy, but only FeiLong and Yoh should know about his wings. He’s accidentally hit Yoh plenty of times with them, and he has better control of them now. 

Akihito doesn’t have his arms. Hopefully, he can strike down some men with his wings and escape. They’re by far the most physically strong part of him.

The incubus rises to his feet and takes stock of who is where. He breathes in. 

And he unleashes his wings, batting one by the head and slamming another in the gut. His white vans create gusts of wind as they battle around, indiscriminately hitting whoever he can catch while he sprints to the door.

It’s pandemonium. 

Gold swirls around him, sparking and electrifying the air. He’s almost to the exit when his sixth sense screams at him. 

It’s instinct for his wings to fold around him, to shield him, just in time for two bullets to pierce through his right one. Immediately, blood spurts down the pinion. Akihito screeches, a pure animal noise, dropping to his knees. 

It’s cuckoo man, and he’s aiming for Akihito again. The incubus dodges, but the bullet hits his other wing anyway. Keening and gagging, he tries to move his wings, but he can only jerk them before he’s heaving bile at the floor in agony, the appendages dropping to the ground with a thud and drizzling red down his feathers to the linoleum. 

He’s _so_ close. Just a bit more. He tries two times to stand up and, step by dizzy step, wings dragging and smearing on the flooring, to nudge the handle open. The men let him, saying nothing, staying still, watching. Judging. Knowing. But the handle is locked. Try as he might, he can’t get it open without his hands.

He rams his shoulder against the wood, again and again and again for what feels like hours, his wing slapping sickeningly against the solid oak. His bell jingles with every strike. There’s blood streaking on the door’s polish, there’s crimson slick pooling beneath his feet. 

He slips and falls, panting. He can’t see past his tears, the black spots dancing in his vision, can’t hear beyond the blood rushing in his head, his own distant echoing whimpers. He has to get back up.

Swaying dangerously, he slowly staggers up. And flings his shoulder against the door. 

Again. 

Again. 

Again. 

He tips, and falls face-first into his own cooling puddle of blood. Iron coats his tongue. He tries to get his feet under him, but they won’t listen. 

He elbows the door, frustration and despair he’s tried to keep inside bubbling up. His arm comes back sticky and scarlet. The door hasn’t moved an inch. 

No. No, no no no no. 

He can’t be trapped again, to be used and tossed around and to be killed, piece by piece. He’s not going to be saved. Nobody’s coming. And he can’t save himself. Like a dam*, all the hopelessness and fear and exhaustion from the past few months spill, roaring out. Far away, he feels humming rumbling up his bones.

He flops around to sit up, leaning on the door for support, to find cuckoo man staring at him. His cold eyes mock Akihito’s feeble attempts. 

To be so close to freedom, only for it to be snatched back again. Akihito would rather die trying. Gold whirls in the air, revolving around him faster and faster, churning in desperation. It feels like the last of him is ejecting what little energy he has into the air, readying for his last fight, the final battle before the day of judgment. It hurts so much. 

_I hear you buzzing_

_A Fly on the wall_

_In through the window_

_And up through the hall_

_Flying in circles just trying to land_

_I see you hurting I do what I can_

_But I won't save you_

_I won't save you_

“Just… just KILL ME!”

_Maybe you are looking for someone to blame_

_Fighting for air while you circle the drain_

_Never be sorry for your little time_

_It's not when you get there_

_It's always the climb_

_But I won't save you_

_I won't save you_

The wind snaps around him, welcoming him home. The pressure drops, like the silence before a winter squall. Akihito falls. The bell jingles. 

Stygian fire sears a perfect circle around him, flames cradling him aflight.

_I...I...I...I... Won't save you_

_I won't (will) save you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In Circles, from the game Transistor  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMWL8cOeAU  
> Hummed version  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfReGPtxNo  
> _n C_rcl_es  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMyoI-Za6z8  
> All versions (What Akihito hears)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-Rzqrix6M
> 
> I couldn’t resist. There’s so many parallels to Sybil and Red and what happens to Akihito. SO MANY. 
> 
> In case you’re wondering, nobody knows the words to the music. When they hear it, it comes across like chaos language in Nier. However, everyone “understands” it.
> 
> A/N:
> 
> I am contemplating dividing the arcs of this story into separate stories under the umbrella series "An Ace In a Yaoi Novel" in which this story is in already. There is a confirmed 3 arcs, pending 4-5 arcs. 
> 
> Pros for separating arcs into stories: easier organization  
> Cons for separating arcs into stories: readers have to bookmark the series or the multiple stories themselves for update notifications
> 
> Please inform me of your thoughts and concerns. Any or all will be appreciated : )


	14. Oops Who Let the Secrets Slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How did you find me?"
> 
> "It smells like tea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First half of Notes:
> 
> This is the chapter where everything devolves into hell and so does my writing.
> 
> *OOC mental breakdown explanation (IF YOU DO SO CHOOSE TO READ THIS, PLEASE READ IT IN FULL OR ELSE IT WON’T MAKE SENSE)
> 
> Everything comes back to appeasing the captors. 
> 
> Take a note of the timeline. Akihito’s mindset change might seem quick, but Akihito’s been in FeiLong’s hands for over a month now. It’s hard to keep your determination and remember why over weeks when your captors for the most part seem nice and care for you. Akihito acclimates to daily life like all people would, and only when he sees someone die that he remembers that it’s dangerous.
> 
> The main reason why Akihito has such a personality change when he’s having a mental breakdown is due to his mal adjusted coping methods. He’s been saved having his head literally shot off by his naturally “childish” personality. The only safe way he can “act out” is by being childish. This reinforces the idea that he’s a child to his captors. 
> 
> To reframe this idea, this is the logic of Akihito’s subconscious:
> 
> Action: Act childish  
> Consequences: Captors think he’s childish. Captors will not kill him if he tries to run or sabotage them or make a mistake because he’s a child. Captors won’t think he’s a threat or that they need to keep a tight leash on him because he’s naïve. If they do catch him betraying them, they’ll brush it off as part of his innocence. Captors will assume he can’t “think” properly enough to get out of their control by himself. He can act out and try to get what he wants by using his childish whims or willies. 
> 
> If he’s caught trying to milk for information, he’ll still keep his freedom to move around and his needs will still be met. He’ll just get a childish punishment and then he can continue to milk his information. 
> 
> However, there is a difference between how Akihito normally reacts and how Akihito reacts when he has a mental breakdown. Yes, he’s naturally childish when he’s normal, but he literally regresses when he has a mental breakdown. He can’t control it much at all. He’s been telling himself this is an okay thing to do, so his mind takes the idea and runs with it. It’s his subconscious’ cry for help and mercy from his captors. It’s also a way for him to cope so everything that’s crushing him seems a lot simpler and easier to deal with for some time. Based on how much murder, death, and gore the poor boy sees you betcha he’s gotta have a coping mechanism that will both be alright for him socially in his circumstances and help him live on. Else that’s not a very good coping mechanism at all. 
> 
> In the end, FeiLong and Yoh, no matter the fact that they kidnapped him, kept him safe and showed him more humanity than Mikhail or even Asami by this point. Akihito is more afraid of the unknown than the known.

Footsteps come closer. Akihito doesn’t care. He’s so dizzy and exhausted after his fall and he just wants to sleep, to rest forever. 

“... kill me.” The boy rasps out. 

The footsteps sigh. “How troublesome.” The man leans over. The younger cracks an eye open. It’s cuckoo man.

Akihito only has a second to gasp before he’s screaming deliriously. There’s something big and blunt incessantly digging, probing into his open wounds. “Hh-ss, Sthhhap, hhh-tttssss!” But no matter how much he writhes, or screams, or begs, the fingers don’t stop prodding into his exposed flesh. 

_Ching. Ching._

_Ching._

Metal clatters on tile. It’s the bullets. 

The boy moans. “Why?”

“You’re needed for the trade.”

What trade? Akihito knows he should believe that he’s not an object, but it’s only a token protest of a life before by this point. But then he remembers what FeiLong told him. “Only FeiLong can trade me.”

Cuckoo man snorts, like he’s heard something so absurd and naïve he can’t believe it. “You think your master has you now? He gave you away, practically for free, for something he should have kept closer. But he’s never kept things as close as he should have, has he?”

“You won’t be able to trade me. I’m damaged.” Akihito coughs. “Dying.” He can taste ozone of want, of decay. It’s him. He’s fading, bit by bit, until all the color will leave his skin and he’ll be a husk of grey, falling to dust in the evening sun. The gold inside him is a flickering, weak flame, blowing out and then _just_ so reigniting by the rattling in his lungs. 

Cuckoo man says nothing. There’s the uncorking of glass, the ripping of cloth. Footsteps. Hands on his down feathers, pressing them down into the wetness like stamping leaves in autumn. Akihito’s shivering. 

Liquid fire pours down his wings, into the holes. His heart thumps wildly: erratically. He can’t think. Akihito gags and spits up blood, wheezing soundless screams. 

He tries to open his eyes, but it’s too much work.

“Are you... killing me?” The boy croaks.

A sardonic huff. “No. I’m binding your wounds. Dropping you off.”

_As long as I’m alive at the drop off point for the exchange, I’m tradable?_

Then: _How come I’m still alive? What am I waiting for?_

His sixth sense wakes. _It’s not yet the eleventh hour. The worst is yet to come._

Great. So _now_ is when his sixth sense decides to anthropomorphize and impart some wisdom. What happened to almost getting killed by his senpai or getting kidnapped? What happened to getting shot? Were those events not “important” enough?

_To survive, you must not be killed in a way that matters._

**

Akihito doesn't keep his eyes open as he’s carried, but he does keep his senses open. Cuckoo man is carrying him down onto the deck, leather jacket man as well as several other men coming along with them. They’re speaking in clipped Russian, spotted with heavy silences. 

There’s wisps of old books and a favored teddy bear aged through time with a tinge of red, following him. If anything happens, Yoh will protect him, he knows. But how much protection does that entail? 

Akihito can’t smell anything else beyond his drying blood. 

Yoh’s aura flares. Gunshots ring into the stern, aiming to kill. Three Russians go down before leather jacket man and the others fire back, but they don’t seem to find the shooter. 

Cuckoo man and the surviving men run towards the maze-like heart of the ship rather than to the exposed drop off spot. Cuckoo man’s running painfully jostles his injuries, and he can’t help but whimper. 

He can’t feel Yoh close anymore. The aura fades and wisps away, like an afterthought. Where is he? Did he get shot? They pass hall after hall, door after door, until what feels like an hour passes, breath by slow breath, gentle jingle by jingle.

The eleventh hour is approaching.

Leather jacket man turns the lever of the doorknob and walks inside. Everyone else follows.

**

Cuckoo man not-so gently drops Akihito in the middle of a table adjacent to the baccarat table, deceptively hidden in the corner by the curtain. He lands on his tied hands, nestled beneath the arch of his back. His arching scimitars flop to land on either side of the table, brushing the cold wood. It hurts, in that queasy, overtired way.

“You’ll pay for it if you make a racket.” Cuckoo man slaps tape over his mouth again. “Don’t cause any more trouble.” A large sheet is thrown on him, covering the baby hairs on his head to the tips of his down fluff. For long moments, he can barely breathe, taking quick, shallow inhales through his nose. 

After a while, though, he gets used to it. There’s still the faint sensation of being semi-suffocated, but it isn’t noticeable unless he pays attention. It’s quite calming. The sheet is still warm from the dryer, freshly laundered. The scent and warmth reminds him of earlier, simpler times. It’s funny how many things people can get used to, given time and no choice.

The hallway is empty, sans leather jacket man’s men. Footsteps approach. A stillness before the kill, an evening gale… Asami?! And another presence, hidden and practically imprinted on Asami’s own, like a shadow on darkness itself. Reflections on still water, a swan in half-dance, fresh laundry dripping on a line.

A voice outside. “Your guard will have to stay back. You must be Asami-sama. I will take your gun.”

The door opens. Asami steps in.

_Almost time. Just a little more._

Sparks can ignite a flame. Yellow sparks can catch and burst to red fire at any moment, burn hotter and hotter the more fuel it eats. Red to orange. Clear orange to white. White to blue, so vibrant it’s fluorescing. Not yet, though. It’s not time. For now, he holds onto the last of his reserves deep within.

“Want to play a game of baccarat?” Leather jacket man. A pause. Shifting. The click of a lighter. 

“Where’s Takaba?” Asami’s smoking. Akihito tries not to let the secondhand smoke get to his lungs, but it’s hard. The fumes itch his lungs and throat. He’s about to start coughing anytime.

“Here.”

“You think I’ll believe that?”

His chest is feeling tighter by each breath. Is he going to die here, hidden away under a sheet in the corner with no one the wiser, befallen by a preventable asthma attack? He can’t. He can’t die, when Asami actually came, and he’s closer than ever to what elusive freedom he can grasp. 

“Think what you want. You’ll find out for yourself in a bit anyway.”

“Tonight, I’m taking Takaba or I’ll put a bullet in all of your heads. Don’t test me.”

Footsteps. The cocking of a gun. Akihito would tear up in relief, but right now he’s coughing muffled little huffs into the tape, inhales and exhales accompanied with a complementary world’s smallest piccolo rattling higher and higher notes. 

“Sorry, but you’ll have to stay here until I get what I came for. If things go well, they’ll go as I said-”

The fall of twilight, the last breath before waking from a mare, a poison turning sweeter and less like poison every day. FeiLong. FeiLong’s here. 

It feels a bit like relief. Akihito tries to shift to his side as another bout of coughs rack his frame, but he can’t grasp enough strength to move while his muscles are spasming, trying to snatch in oxygen. The air below the sheet is getting hotter and hotter, condensation building on the tape from his desperate little exhales. His body is in so much pain, but nothing can top the squeezing of his lungs.

Akihito feels like a lab mouse being slowly asphyxiated, put in a euthanization cage and left alone for the carbon dioxide to vent in while the researcher is in the next room, drinking a coffee and checking the morning news, waiting for his body to die. 

Please, please, someone give him air.

On the other side of the room, a curtain is lifted. “A secret meeting with just the two of you? Looks like fun. I think I’ll join.” FeiLong’s incensed beyond anything he’s heard before. 

Everyone here is on edge, angry. It’s in the faint burnt smell permeating the atmosphere like a smog.

“It’s rare that we’re all here. Why don’t we play a game?”

FeiLong slides into a chair. There’s a sound of something solid hitting plastic. The sound is familiar. Akihito casts his memory back, searching. 

The blond doesn’t like carrying around his inhaler, always leaving it saying he forgot it or that he couldn’t find it until Yoh finally lost patience and confiscated it to keep it on him at all times. But the sound is like the first few days, where he’s tried to hide it below his bed, throw it between the dresser and the wall, squeeze under the sink: anywhere where it’ll fit. It’s the sound of hollow plastic casing hitting the floor or the wall or the desk. 

FeiLong’s carrying his inhaler. 

Akihito gasps as long and hard through his nose as his coughing subsides, only for a new bout to erupt, seemingly never ending. He tastes blood. He’s woozy, high, like he’s floating on clouds but sinking down by the heaviest gravity simultaneously. It’s sure. He’s going to die, and this time it’s by the betrayal of his own body. 

“Mikhail, where is Akihito.” 

“He’s here. You’ll have to wait-”

The safety of a gun unclicks. “Tell me where he is. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you right now.”

“Whoa, whoa there! Hold your horses-”

A bang. “Next time, I won’t miss. Now tell me where he is.”

“There. Are you happy now? It was supposed to be a surprise-”

A curtain is near ripped off, the sheet flinging to expose Akihito. It’s FeiLong, fury in his eyes. The air is cool and so much fuller, better, and he feels like he can breathe again, but he’s still coughing and he’s still not breathing. The tape is ripped off, he’s manhandled to a sitting position, and a plastic bit is shoving in his mouth.

“Akihito, inhale.” It takes four or five tries to time the aerosol with an in breath, but finally one does and the drug hits his lungs. He’s still coughing and wheezing and seizing, but it’s...better. Hurts less. FeiLong shakes the canister and inserts it back between his lips.

“Again.” 

It only takes two tries now to inhale the menthol tasting spray. It goes brisk down his airway, soothing the itchiness and tightness for only a second. Breathing getting better under control minute by minute, Akihito notices that FeiLong is ducked in front of him, rubbing firm counterclockwise circles on his back, down the base of his wings, in time to his whistles.

When he doesn’t sound like a plastic one-cent kazoo anymore, he blinks droplets of wetness away from his eyelashes and takes the moment to look around. The room is large and covered with thick muffling curtains, decked out in muted colors. There’s leather jacket man and Asami watching intensely behind a baccarat table. A window has been propped open, the misty and salty sea breeze drafting in. Outside, he hears the honking of seagulls and the clamour of life, going about unaware. Interestingly, there’s no one else other than them in the room.

He’s been promised a release home, but everything he’s seen goes against it. At least if he’s with FeiLong, he knows he won’t be tortured and shot and broken in like a specimen. FeiLong harbours relative safety. He can’t help but relax; to burrow into the offered warmth. Everything feels simpler. 

Akihito turns his eyes back to FeiLong’s. He’s too tired to deal with this bullshit. 

“FeiLong, how?” He rasps, only to cough again. Thankfully, it’s only a small series of coughs, breaking just a few seconds later.

“How did I find you?”

Akihito nods into FeiLong’s cervix, eyes lidding and closing, energy depleted after life threatening event after life threatening event. The aches and horrendous pains from the last few hours reverb bone-deep in some distant desensitized way. 

“It smells like tea.”

The BaiShe leader undos his arm ties and hefts him up on the hip like a child with one hand, careful of his welted hips and thighs, rubbing back circulation into his hands with the other. After a few seconds, it burns and runs jitters down the entire uncirculated area. His hands can’t help but twitch. 

“Was good.” Akihito slurs into the warm chest. “I’s good, promise. Tried to get back. Didn’t run away.” He lifts a shaky hand, pinky finger extending. The boy doesn’t know who or why he’s saying this, except that it feels right. Everything is going to be alright, for a short while. He’s back in the safety of familiarity.

“I believe you, Akihito.” FeiLong links their pinkies together. As FeiLong walks, the broken half-crescents of his wing drag streaks of half-gumming rouge against the mahogany flooring. The blood blends right in.

Asami smirks. “Never thought I’ll live to see the day you become a papa yourself.” FeiLong shoots daggers out of his eyes at the Japanese crime lord.

“You kidnapped him for less than an hour, Mikhail, and you’ve almost killed him.” FeiLong scans Akihito up and down again. “Twice. I don’t appreciate that. At all.”

“You make me sound so bad, FeiLong.”

FeiLong’s contempt falls thick enough to be cut by a butter knife. “From what I see, there’s only a few ways to get injuries like these. And all of them are on purpose.”

A pause.

“Mikhail, I’ll not forgive you for undermining me and doing as you please. I should shoot you where you stand.”

At the raising voices, Akihito whines and fidgets. He’s so exhausted and hurt and overtired. It’s tugging on his limbs, his tight chest, his tickling wings. He’s wound up with nowhere to go, worked up when he’s already in a soft place to land. But he’s also floating on giggles, ready to burst out, and everything seems rounded by some strange bubble of feeling _good_. 

He’s tired. He just wants to feel good, for once. So he willingly gives into the feeling; lets it swallow him whole. 

“It-it wasn’t him.” A hand gently pats his head. He quiets, burrowing back into the familiar pull of waves lapping to shore. But he has to get the story straight. 

“What? Akihito.” FeiLong brushes his fringe out of his eyes and places him sitting on the baccarat table. Akihito opens his eyes. It’s dim enough to not blind his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“He didn’t shoot me. Don’t get mad at him, Fei. It was cuckoo man. Cuckoo man shot me, but he only did it because he can’t help it.”

“Cuckoo?” Mikhail’s eyes sharpen, but Akihito ignores him. He’s talking to FeiLong, not Mikhail. 

“Whenever he’s next to something weaker and smaller than him, he needs to push it out of the nest, to kill it so he can grow bigger.” Akihito giggles, thumbs interlacing to mimic a flying bird. He coos a high and then a low note, legs bouncing back and forth. “Coo-coo! Coo-coo!”

Mikhail tenses and rolls his shoulders. 

FeiLong’s fingers tighten a bit in his hair, but then resume their petting. It feels nice. The blond sighs, almost theatrically. “But I feel sad. Cuckoo’s always alone. He’s always searching for the next biggest nest too fast to keep any friends. And he’ll always be thinking he’s something he’s not.”

“Mikhail. I won’t say it again. Get out of my ship.” 

Time collapses and stretches. The three men talk amongst themselves. The next time Akihito blinks, it’s only FeiLong and Asami. 

FeiLong murmurs, dragging his attention back. “Akihito. I need you to stay with me. Don’t you want to go back home?”

“Of course! But how about you and Yoh?”

A huff. “I’m sure I can take care of myself.”

“But Yoh? He’s hurt.” Beneath the geosmin, Akihito remembers the sharp, salty tang of blood. 

“How can you tell?”

“Well, he’s here, isn’t he?”

The narrowing of FeiLong’s eyebrows tells him that no, FeiLong did not know about Yoh. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll keep in touch if you go home.”

“Okaaayyy.” Akihito relents, still clinging to FeiLong like a monkey. He doesn’t want to let go. The last time he did, he got into this mess. 

Asami saunters over, palms open, careful, like expecting Akihito to startleif he moves too fast. The business man reaches for Akihito, but the boy doesn’t let go of FeiLong.

“Akihito, let go.”

The 5”2 blond just clings tighter. 

“Akihito, you’re being a very bad boy right now. Do you want a spanking?”

He jerkily shakes his head inside the curve of FeiLong’s neck. “No spanking! Spanking hurts! No! No!”

“Then let go and go with Asami.” FeiLong’s clipped voice books no arguments. But for an inexplicable reason, Akihito fears that if he lets go, he’ll get hurt and never come back or die. 

Akihito turns his head to Asami. “You’ll be nice to me? You won’t hurt me?” The end of his words fade into lazy drawl. His mouth can’t quite seem to grasp the sounds.

Asami tries to smile, tries to soften his edges. It doesn’t turn out well, but the every-lonely howl of mountain winds chime a bit in laughter. “Yes, Akihito. I won’t hurt you.”

“Okay.” 

The blond unclenches his numb grip and holds his arms open for Asami. Once he’s transferred to the new man, he clings hard to the 3-piece pressed suit and leans his forehead in the man’s snug neck, glancing back at FeiLong imploringly. 

_It’s not safe yet_ , his sixth sense warns. 

Akihito pokes out with the tiniest tendril of gold. A bucket of cold water realisation. _I’m not going back to Japan from here, am I?_

_You still have a chance. Try._

While he was distracted, shadow man comes in with what Akihito assumes as the deed. The deed exchanges hands back to FeiLong. The words are all muffled, underwater. Nothing hurts.

“You guys would have been good friends if met in different circumstances.” Akihito yawns. His words come out slurring, like gibberish. He struggles to get the words out with his thick, dry tongue. He’s been sleepy, but he knows he’ll probably not wake up again if he falls asleep. The more time passes, though, the less he finds that he cares. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t wake up again. He just wants to sleep. “Do not be afraid to love. Madness lies in glass jars.”

It’s been long minutes since he’s stopped bleeding. For some reason, he’s been getting colder and colder. He’s shivering, now, but he doesn’t care about it either.

Someone is shaking his shoulder.

“Akihito. Don’t fall asleep.”

The hand doesn’t stop shaking his shoulder. It’s annoying. The lull of the strong heartbeat and warm chest rocks him to drowsiness. 

He whines in complaint. “It’s important. Akihito, stay with me.”

The room bursts in a flurry of gunshots and yells. It’s so loud. Why can’t they just leave him alone? Akihito tries to blink his eyes open but they’re too heavy. He vaguely registers that he’s being carried away when sunlight glares into his eyes and wind snaps at his feathers. 

Oh. There’s sour milk man and cuckoo man. Cuckoo man runs and shoots someone until their heartbeat is too fast then too slow. Cuckoo man grabs something like a book?

It’s getting harder and harder to parse out the sounds. Everything’s like a dream.

Shadow man shoots at cuckoo man. Hm. There’s Yoh. Yoh shoots at leather jacket man and cuckoo man. Leather jacket man and sour milk man are shooting at Asami and FeiLong. Leather jacket man hurts FeiLong. Asami is running towards the edge of the ship, carrying Akihito. 

Akihito’s being dropped. The impact to the ground shakes him with a bit of clarity for a split second, and then everything fades again. Leather jacket man scoops Akihito up with one hand, the other firing bullets. 

What did he need to do again? Fight? But he’s so tired. What is there to fight?

It goes quiet. After a while, he feels eucalyptus man’s arms cradling him. He falls asleep.

Midnight strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m also writing this because AGE PLAY AND REGRESSION DOES NOT GET ENOUGH RECOGNITION. I REPEAT: AGE PLAY AND AGE REGRESSION DOES NOT GET ENOUGH RECOGNITION. It is a common coping mechanism for C-PTSD sufferers and other comorbid mental health issues. It can be used as a kind of therapy, and oftentimes for those suffering age regression is not a choice. They cannot control their coping mechanism. 
> 
> Although age regression is linked to dissociative disorder and dissociation, age regression is not dissociative identity disorder. When a regressor fully regresses (due to a trigger or otherwise), they literally feel and think at the age they regress to. They may not act like it on the outside and desperately try to hold the fort down in fear of showing weakness, “unnaturalness” or acting “retarded (which is abelist)”. But on the inside, fully regressed people are as real of a child as “unregressed” children of their mental age. 
> 
> Age regression is also a natural part of childhood development. The most common symptom of stress or anxiety in children is regression. In fact, stressed children almost always regress. Contrary to popular belief, people who age regressor are not pedophiles or sexual deviants. (I do not understand that line of logic? How does having a coping skill that doesn’t harm you or others around you=PERVERT? But then again people used to equate homosexuality with pedophiles, so I shouldn’t be too surprised).
> 
> Children naturally age regress to a younger age with younger behaviors when a stressor comes in their lives. For example, a child might be intensely attached to their security blanket after their parents divorce or they move homes or they lose their friends. A toddler might regress back to needing diapers for a bit after a new sibling is born. Older children also regress. A teenager might regress and be more volatile and prone to lashing out. 
> 
> When kids are overwhelmed, it is their natural prerogative to return to a way of coping they’ve already learned. Oftentimes, the only difference in the time of stress being traumatic and nontraumatic is the stability of their caretakers. Regression, in short, is a pre-programed way to prevent trauma and reaffirm familial bonds.
> 
> Only after they know they are safe and will be protected will children ease out of regression. Unfortunately, traumatizing reactions from other people or circumstances can “shock” someone out of their regression and make regression an unsafe space for the regressor, which helps nothing at all. 
> 
> What can people do to help if you think your friend or family member regresses:  
> Take note of the trigger  
> Make the regression a positive experience  
> Do not urge the regressor to “shake it off” or guilt the regressor to stop  
> Do not shame the regressor for their regressive episode  
> Provide comfort and stability  
> If the regressor is comfortable with you and the situation, try to care for their needs. Prioritize their mental and physical health and wellbeing  
> Be ready to listen with open ears if they so choose to share about their experiences
> 
> Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
> 
> As always, feel free to ask away or leave comments.
> 
> AND: Last but not least, please reply if you want me to continue posting future arcs here or as another story. Chapter 14 is the end of the first arc.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions, comments, critiques? Please leave them down below!


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